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Exactly behind him, peering through the hole in the wall, was an evil face 


DANNY 

THE DETECTIVE 


BY 

V. C. BARCLAY 


Illustrated 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 

TTbe Iknicfterbocber press 
1918 


Copyright, 1918 


BY 

V. C. BARCLAY 




NOV -4 1918 



Ubc Iftntclierbbcftcr presa, iftew ll?orft 


©CU506428 

t / » 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — In the Straw-Loft . . . i 

IL — The Mysterious Stranger . . 7 

III. — The Mill Pond .... 23 

IV. — One a.m. ..... 40 

V. — The Dark Passage ... 51 

VI. — Spies! ...... 78 

VII. — A White Face in the Moonlight . 82 

VIII. — Tapping the Cable ... 99 

IX. — Free! ...... hi 

X. — In the Hands of the Scouts . . 121 

XI. — Caught at Last . . . .133 

XI 1 . — ‘'Well Done, Danny!'' . . . 140 

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ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Exactly behind him, Peering through 
THE Hole in the Wall, was an Evil 
Face . . . . . Frontispiece 

Looking about him warily the Stranger 
Picked up his Bicycle and Flung it into 
THE Dark Waters OF THE Pool . . 14 ^ 

Bending down, the Man Allowed his Face 
TO BE Caught in the Bright Light, and 
Danny Looked with all his Eyes, so 
THAT he might ReMEMBER EVERY FEATURE 50 

“Look, Sir,” he said, “you’ve Torn a Big 
Piece out of your Coat! And one of 
THE Buttons, too!” .... 76 • 

“Well, we’ve Caught Fritz and his Pals 

ALL RIGHT, ’ ’ SAID CAPTAIN MiLES , ‘ ‘ ThANKS 
TO Danny the Detective” . . . 90 

There, Row upon Row, Shining, Perfect, 

Ready for Use, Lay a Vast Store of ^ 
Machine Guns 100 


V 


VI 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING PASE 

He Stepped out on to a Ledge, very Narrow, 

VERY Perilous 112 

Before long the Boys were Tearing down 
THE Road, Danny Sitting on the Carrier, 

CLINGING TO DiCK’S BeLT . . . I3O 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


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Danny the Detective 


CHAPTER I 

IN THE STRAW-LOFT 

Danny Moor was feeling very happy as he 
sat on the garden gate swinging his legs. 

He had lived all his life in a very dull and 
smoky part of London. Now, at last, his 
mother had come to live in the country in a 
village called Dutton, as lodge-keeper to Sir 
Edward Finch. And Danny found himself 
in a dear little house at the bottom of a long 
drive. 

It was an old-fashioned cottage with a 
thatched roof, old black beams, and red tiled 
floors. Honeysuckle grew in wild profusion 
over the rustic porch and around the latticed 


2 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


windows. Beyond its little garden stretched 
the great park belonging to the Hall, where 
spotted deer roamed free, and squirrels darted 
like red flashes through the trees. The rarest 
wild birds knew that here they were safe to 
build their nests, unmolested. But that which 
delighted Danny most was the great, grey ruin 
of an ancient abbey. It stood in the park, 
within a stone’s throw of his mother’s cottage. 
As he lay in bed at night he could see the tall 
grey tower looming up against the purple sky, 
and the outline of the crumbling walls and 
traceried windows clear against the stars. He 
used to lie in bed and wonder, and make up 
stories about the mysterious ruin. 

Danny was not quite an ordinary boy. His 
school-fellows used to laugh at him; the big 
boys sometimes jeered at him; while his 
own pals admired him and thought him very 
clever. And everyone called him Danny the 
Detective. ” This is why he came to be known 
by that name. 

Ever since he was quite a little chap Danny 


IN THE STRAW-LOFT 


3 


had loved anything mysterious. Detective 
stories were his delight. He would creep 
about in the dark old house in London, 
playing at being a policeman tracking down a 
burglar. When he grew a little older he would 
play at ‘‘private detective,"’ scanning the 
faces of the people in the streets as he went to 
school, noticing their footprints and anything 
strange about their appearance or behaviour. 

He loved to sit by the fire, on winter even- 
ings, reading of Sherlock Holmes, and dream- 
ing that he was one of the people taking part 
in those fascinating adventures. And his 
mind was always full of splendid ideas for dis- 
guises and secret messages. He taught him- 
self the Morse code, because he thought some 
day it might be useful to know it. He might 
find himself in a dungeon (who could tell .^) and 
want to communicate with someone on the 
other side of the wall, and then he would tap 
out the message with a knife. As he ran to 
school in the morning he would repeat the 
“idd}^ umpty” alphabet to himself, and spell 


4 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


out the names of the shops in dots and dashes, 
so as to get in good practice. 

But in the country everything was so dif- 
ferent. He did not know how you set about 
being a detective in lanes and woods and fields. 
It was Patrol-Leader Dick Church who solved 
the problem, and also gave him the most 
ripping idea he had ever had in his life. 

Dick was the stable-boy up at the Hall. He 
was also senior Patrol-Leader of the ist Dut- 
ton Troop of Boy Scouts. He had soon made 
friends with the lonely little boy from London, 
and Danny was now as keen an admirer of 
Dick Church as every other small boy in the 
village. 

It was on the day that they sat in the straw- 
loft up at the Hall, eating gooseberries, that 
Danny learnt about Wolf Cubs. Pie had often 
longed to be a Scout; it seemed the next best 
thing to being a real detective. But he was only 
ten, so there was no hope. Now, as they sat to- 
gether in the dusty, golden straw, among the 
cobwebs and the old black beams, Danny 


IN THE STRAW-LOFT 


5 


learnt that it was possible to be a Junior Scout 
or Wolf Cub, even though you were ‘‘only a 
kidF’ 

His heart beat fast. 

“Do they learn tracking?’’ he said. 

“Rather,” said Dick, ‘^and signalling and 
swimming and first aid and all sorts of things 
— just like us.” 

“I’ll join ’em,” said Danny, wriggling 
about in the straw in his excitement. 

Dick laughed and aimed a gooseberry at a 
big rat who happened to be passing. 

“Look here, youngster,” he said, “don’t 
you get the idea that Scouting is all play, 
all ragging about, and dressing up, and paper- 
chasing — ’cos it’s not.” 

“Isn’t it?” said Danny. 

“No,” answered the Patrol-Leader, lying 
back till his head was half-smothered in his 
stalky pillow. 

“It means doing good turns to other people 
every chance you get. And it puts the lid on 
telling lies or sneaking or pinching things or 


6 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


swearing. It means making a solemn promise 
and doing anything rather than break it. It 
means jolly well bucking up all round. And 
it means sticking to iu*^ 

“Oh!’’ said Danny, and he pondered in 
silence for quite a long time. 

Dick looked at his small friend. 

“Cheer up, kid,” he said. “You’ll make 
a top-hole Cub if you try. The Cub motto 
is, ^ Do Your Best,^ D’you think you can live 
up to that.?” 

“Not half I said Danny, and from that 
time he decided to be a Cub — a real Cub, 
inside as well as out. 


CHAPTER II 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 

The Cubs’ bare knees were splashed with mud 
as they pounded along the lane, looking out 
keenly for the little scraps of white paper that 
formed the ''scent” of the hares. 

"Phew!” panted one of the hounds, "Tm 
hot.” 

"Stick — to — it!” panted back his pal. 

"Are we downhearted?” called Jim Tate, 
the Sixer, as he had heard Tommies call out 
at the end of a long route march. 

"No — o — o!” came the answer right down 
the road, for some Cubs were getting left 
behind. 

But Danny, having lived all his life in Lon- 
don, had not done much in the way of long runs. 
He had got a bad stitch in his side almost at 
7 


8 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


once, but remembering the second Cub Law — 
‘‘A Cub does not give in to himself’’ — he had 
set his teeth, and determined to bear the pain, 
and not to give in. Then his legs began to ache 
as if they were ready to break. But he stuck 
out manfully. Finally his wind gave out. 

‘H’m done,” he gasped. 

‘‘ No, you aren ’t, ” called his Sixer. Here — 
hang on !” and he held out a hand to his recruit. 
‘‘We shall get them, I bet. We’ve kept it 
up hot so far.” 

Just then the white paper showed up a bank, 
and over the fence, into a field. With a howl 
the Cubs scrambled up the grassy bank, cling- 
ing to weeds and sticks and stones, and were 
soon in full cry across the grass. On they went, 
and through a hedge on to the road beyond. 
But there was no “scent” on the road; no 
paper showed on the brown mud. 

“False trail!” groaned the hounds. 

“ Bad luck, ” called Jim, the Sixer, “we must 
go back. We may get them yet. ” And the 
hounds dashed off again across the field to get 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 9 


back to the old ‘‘scent/’ But it was too 
much for Danny. He sank down, tired out. 

“They can run!” he said. And he thought, 
a little sadly, that they would think him 
a rotter to have fallen out. “I stuck it as 
long as I could,” he said. “I did my best — 
I couldn’t do more.” 

He was just going to start back to Head- 
quarters when something happened which was 
the first step in the curious adventures that 
befell him from that day onwards. 

“ Swish-sh-sh 1 ” sounded the tires of a 
bicycle on the muddy road, as it flew past him 
like a streak. The rider was bareheaded and 
seemed in an awful hurry. Then something 
happened that made Danny jump up and start 
running down the road for all he was worth, 
quite forgetful of his weary legs. A dog had 
jumped out from the hedge, and, in trying to 
avoid running over it, the cyclist had skidded 
badly, and now lay quite still on the road. 

Danny panted down the muddy lane, 
hoping the man was not dead, but, before 


10 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


he reached the place where the accident had 
happened, the stranger had got up and was 
sitting on the bank, his head in his hands. 

‘‘Can I help you, sir.?” said Danny eager to 
do a good turn. 

The young man started and looked up at the 
boy with wild eyes; then peered about him and 
looked up and down the road, as if he were 
afraid of being followed. Blood was stream- 
ing down his face from a nasty gash in his 
forehead. 

“Can I help you, sir.?” repeated Danny. 
“Let me tie up your head — it’s bleeding 
badly. ” 

“Thank you,” said the young man in a 
shaky voice. 

Danny was glad to find he had put a large, 
clean handkerchief in his pocket before start- 
ing. He knew enough about first aid to real- 
ise the danger of putting on an open wound 
anything that is at all dirty. So he opened out 
the handkerchief and laid the part that had 
been folded up inside, on the wound. What 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER ii 


could he use as a bandage? There was no- 
thing handy. 

So, with a sigh of regret, he realised he must 
sacrifice his beautiful new brown neckerchief. 
He took it off and folded it neatly into a ‘'nar- 
row bandage.’’ This he tied firmly around 
the young man ’s head, securing it with a reef 
knot. 

“You’re a bit shaky, sir, aren’t you?” 
he said. “My home is in the next village. 
Won’t you come back and rest ? Mother will 
give you some tea, and I’ll run for a doctor. 
I think your head will want stitching. ” 

“No, thank you,” said the young man 
quickly, looking down the road again. “I 
assure you I am quite all right now. I was 
just a little stunned. I thank you for your 
assistance, my little friend.” 

There was something curious about the 
way the man spoke. Danny wondered what 
it was. “Foreigner,” he said to himself, as he 
picked up the bicycle and held it for the 
stranger. 


12 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


Could you tell me the way to Thorn- 
hurst?’’ asked the man. 

Danny thought a moment, and told him 
as well as he could. 

‘‘Thank you,” said the stranger. He was 
about to mount his bicycle when a thought 
seemed to strike him. Turning to the Cub. 
“Little boy,” he said, “should any person 
ask you if you have seen me on this road, 
tell them you have seen no one — no one at 
all.” 

Danny grinned. 

“Sorry, sir,” he said. “Can’t tell a lie.” 

The man swore under his breath. “Little 
fool, ” he muttered. 

Then he held out a bright half-crown. 
“That will keep you quiet,” he said. 

Danny flushed, and then laughed scorn- 
fully. “Not much — it won’t,” he cried. 

“Well,” said the man angrily, “tell them 
I’ve gone to Thornhurst, and am taking a 
train to London. I shall be in Dover to-mor- 
row. You won’t forget — London and Dover.” 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 13 


Danny nodded, and the man jumped on his 
bicycle and rode away. 

‘‘He’s a queer chap,” said Danny, “and I 
bet there’s something on somewhere. Wish 
I knew what it was.” The detective spirit was 
roused in him. Suddenly he forgot all about 
Cubs and paper-chases. He was a private 
detective again, as in the old London days. 
Kneeling on the ground, he examined the 
man’s footprints in the mud, and made a 
sketch of them and of the bicycle tracks in 
his notebook. Then, feeling very important, 
he wrote a short report of the adventure in his 
pocket-book, added the date (July i, 1914), 
and started oflF across the fields to get back 
to the Pack Headquarters. 

About half a mile on, his path lay across 
the yard of an old deserted mill. As he 
clambered over the wall, something made 
him glance at the mill pool a hundred yards 
away. By it, in the shadow of the mill, 
stood the mysterious stranger, who had bi- 
cycled away half an hour ago towards Thorn- 


14 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


hurst! His head was still bound up with 
Danny’s scarf. 

Remembering the law of the jungle, Danny 
‘Troze. ” Squatting perfectly still on the top 
of the wall he watched, breathlessly. What 
could the stranger be doing there? Thorn- 
hurst was in the opposite direction. He had 
said he was going there, and on to London. 

Looking about him warily the stranger 
picked up his bicycle Snd flung it into the dark 
waters of the pool. Danny heard the splash, 
and all was still. 

Then the man looked about him again, turn- 
ing his head from side to side, as if to make 
sure he was not perceived. What was he going 
to do? Then, alas, he saw Danny! For one 
moment he stood quite , still, gazing up at 
him, as if in dismay. Then, like a shadow, 
he vanished behind the crumbling walls of 
the deserted mill. 

For a moment, Danny stood quite still, 
his eyes and mouth wide open with utter 
surprise. 



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''‘‘4 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 15 


Then the detective instinct in him realised 
that there must be something very ‘‘fishy” 
about a person who threw a good bike into 
a pond ! He also realised that if he was to find 
out anything about this fishy person there was 
not a moment to be lost, so he scrambled down 
off the rickety old wall that he had been scal- 
ing, when he got his glimpse of the man, and 
set off across the yard. 

The man had caught sight of Danny, he felt 
sure, just after flinging the bicycle into the 
pond. This was why he had vanished so 
quickly. The pond was hidden from Danny’^s 
view when he got down from the wall. Would 
this give the stranger a chance to escape ? 

A moment later Danny was hurrying down 
the steep bank towards the marshy ground 
where the pond lay. 

When he reached the pool there was no 
sign of the man. He peered about in the old 
barns, the rickety sheds, and the broken pig- 
sty — the man was nowhere. He went up into 
the mill. He climbed up ladders to the top- 


i6 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


most floor. He peered between the great 
millstones. He leant far out of the windows 
and looked up and down the road and across 
the fields. There was no sign of the stranger. 

‘‘He must be a jolly good scout to have hid- 
den so quickly/’ said Danny to himself. “I 
wasn’t more than two minutes getting to the 
pond, but he managed to bunk. ” 

The only thing to do was to track the man 
down. Yes, there were the footmarks and 
a bicycle track in the soft mud of the little 
path that led down from the road to the 
marshy ground by the pond. Danny ex- 
amined them carefully; they were quite fresh. 
He compared them with the drawing he had 
made in his pocket-book half an hour before, 
and they tallied exactly. So this was the 
same man; there could be no mistake. 

With his heart thumping hard, Danny fol- 
lowed up the tracks. They led to the pond in 
a roundabout way, showing that the man had 
taken cover behind a hedge, the old barn, and 
a broken wall. By the side of the pond the 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 17 


wheel tracks stopped. Danny could see the 
firm, deep marks where the man had stood 
while picking up the machine and throwing it 
into the water. 

Then the footmarks went off at right angles ; 
four long strides — and they stopped behind the 
broken wall, where the man seemed to have 
stood still. Danny searched all round, but 
the footmarks did not go any further. And 
yet there was no cover here ! 

He walked in a circle round the spot at about 
five yards ’ distance, but no tracks were to be 
seen. Danny the Detective was sorely puz- 
zled. But, returning to the place by the wall 
where the man had stood, he suddenly saw 
what he had missed before. The footprints 
did leave the spot, but they went straight back 
to the pond-side, treading almost where the 
first footprints showed! 

He followed them up. But at the water’s 
edge he was as puzzled as he had been at the 
wall. The footprints did not lead away! 

Danny was stumped. There was nothing 


i8 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


more to be done. It seemed a mystery with 
no solution — a riddle with no answer. He 
determined to put the matter into the hands 
of wiser people than he. 

Squatting on the old wall he wrote in his 
notebook an account of what had passed. 
Then he set off homewards. At the Pack 
Headquarters, he found Fred Codding, his 
Sixer, ramping on the step. 

“You little rotter!’’ he cried, as soon as he 
saw Danny. “What did you want to fall out 
for, and then play about and not come back.? 
All the other chaps have gone back to tea. 
But when we found that you were not at 
your house I was told to wait here and report 
to Mr. Fox if you were not back by 6.30.” 

“Awfully sorry, Fred,” said Danny, “but 
I wasn ’t playing about. I was having a won- 
derful adventure. I ” 

“Oh, shut up!” said Fred, impatiently. 
“We know all about your ‘adventures.’” 

“But this is truth,'' said Danny, in despair. 
“A most extraordinary thing happened ” 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 19 

‘‘Dry up!’’ said Fred. 

But Danny was determined to make him 
listen. 

“Look here,” he said, “it’s all very well 
for you to say, ‘ Dry up, ’ but what would you 
say if you saw a chap chuck a good bike into 
a pond and then make off?” 

“I’d say the chap who told me such a yarn 
was a liar, ” said F red. “ I must go and report 
that you’ve got back,” he added. “You cut 
along home and stop telling everyone detective 
stories. Remember you’re a Wolf Cub, and 
not a kid any more. A Cub is truthful. ” 

Danny flushed to the roots of his hair. But 
he had the sense not to answer back, for he 
knew that if he did he would not be able to 
resist punching his Sixer’s head — and that 
would not be loyalty. So he turned and went 
sadly home. 

But the strange thing he had seen was not to 
be put out of his mind so easily. Something 
must be done. He decided to go to the Scouts 
about it that night. 


20 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


After tea he set out for the Scouts’ Head- 
quarters. There was a meeting on. He b anged 
at the door. 

^‘What d’you want.?” said the Second who 
opened it. 

want to speak to Patrol-Leader Church,” 
said Danny. He felt sure his friend would 
give him a fair hearing. 

‘‘He’s away,” said the Scout, “gone to see 
his uncle at Thornhurst. ” 

“I’ve got something very important to 
report,” said Danny. 

“Sorry,” said the Scout kindly, “there’s 
a Court of Honour sitting just now. Come 
another time.” 

But here the Chairman’s voice broke in. 

“ Bring the kid in, ” he called. “ Let ’s hear 
the ‘important’ matter!” 

Danny entered the brightly lighted room 
shyly. The eight Leaders and Seconds stared 
at him. Then one of them, Fred Codding ’s 
big brother, burst into a shout of laughter. 

“Hullo!” he cried, “ it ’s ‘ Danny the Detec- 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 21 


tive!’ I hear from my young brother that 
he’s got a wonderful yarn about a mysterious 
stranger and a bike and a pond !” 

Danny flushed. Then he looked straight 
at Patrol-Leader Codding. 

‘‘Your brother wouldn’t believe me,” he 
said, “but I’m a Wolf Cub, and I wouldn’t 
tell a lie for anything. It’s the truth, and 
that’s what I’ve come about.” 

The Patrol-Leaders smiled. 

“All right, youngster,” said the Chairman, 
“sit down. And when we’ve done the job 
we’re on now, you can make your report.” 

Danny sat down, wishing himself a hundred 
miles away. Presently the Chairman called 
him up. 

“Please give the Court your report about 
this stranger,” he said solemnly 

Danny forgot his shyness. It seemed to 
him that he was a chief witness, giving evidence 
at a court of law. Very clearly he told his 
story. 

The Court deliberated for a few minutes. 


22 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


‘Ht’s a good yarn, anyway!” said the Chair- 
man, ''though I can’t see the chap’s idea in 
throwing his bike in the pond. Look here, 
youngster, we’ll take the matter in hand. 
Kangaroo Patrol shall go with you to-morrow 
and drag the pond. If they find the bike we 
will take further steps. ” 

This was duly recorded in the minutes by 
the Secretary. 

Danny was delighted. 

"Thank you very much indeed!” he said, 
and, saluting, withdrew. 

"Smart little chap!” said the Leaders, as 
they turned once more to the business on 
hand. 


CHAPTER III 

THE MILL POND 

It was Saturday. At 2.30 the Kangaroos 
were coming to drag the pond. Danny had 
got up at 6.30 and was at the scene of yester- 
day’s adventures by 7.30. The tracks were 
still clear, but there were no new ones. 

All the morning he was on guard, now 
watching from his place of ambush behind 
the old wall ; now exploring the mill for any 
possible clues. 

The sky was black with threatening clouds. 
At twelve the storm broke. The rain came 
down in torrents. Danny took shelter in the 
mill, keeping watch on the pond from the win- 
dow. It was nearly two before the down- 
pour ceased. Then a pale sunbeam broke out, 
and Danny ventured forth into the dripping 
23 


24 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


world. Little streamlets gurgled down the 
paths; cataracts gushed from pipes and gut- 
ters about the mill. Small ponds lay in hol- 
low places. 

And, alas, the tracks of the stranger’s steps 
were hidden by an ocean of muddy water! 

Danny’s heart sank. He had counted so on 
showing the Kangaroos this incontestable evi- 
dence. Any Scout would have read the true 
story of yesterday’s adventures in those marks. 
And now they were gone ! 

At 2.30 the Kangaroos arrived, very keen 
on the job. They dragged the pond from end 
to end. They raked its bottom with a hay- 
rake. They probed it with a pitchfork. Then 
they laughed scornfully. 

'‘Nothing doing,” said the Patrol-Leader. 
“ ’Fraid you must have been dreaming yes- 
terday, young Wolf Cub. ” 

Danny was astounded. He had seen the 
bicycle thrown in, and now he had seen the 
pond dragged with great thoroughness and no 
bicycle revealed. 


THE MILL POND 


25 


The youngest Kangaroo had a bright idea. 

“ I expect the chap came early this morning 
and dragged the pond himself and got up the 
bike, ’’ he said. 

Danny shook his head. 

‘H was here before it began to rain,” he said, 
'‘and there were no fresh tracks.” 

The Kangaroos went away, very bored and 
very muddy. It was not long before the story 
had spread through the whole Troop and the 
whole Pack. Everyone was inclined to agree 
with Fred Codding, the Sixer, that Danny the 
Detective was a little liar. But Danny, though 
hopelessly bewildered, knew that what he had 
seen the day before had not been a dream. 

The next few days were very unhappy.- 
Danny was in hopeless disgrace. The Scouts 
laughed. The Cubs were angry because he 
had brought disgrace on the Pack. The 
Scoutmaster chaffed Mr. Fox, the Cubmaster, 
and said he had heard there was a budding 
novelist in the Pack ! 

The only comforting thing that happened 


26 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


was that in a local paper there appeared a 
short account of a gentleman’s bicycle having 
mysteriously disappeared from outside a shop 
where he had left it. 

But instead of this convincing everyone that 
Danny’s story was true, he was only chaffed 
about the little paragraph. 

All this made him quite determined to clear 
his honour and the honour of the Pack. He 
made up his mind never to rest until he had 
solved the mystery. From then onward he 
looked at everyone with the eye of a detec- 
tive. Not one stranger escaped his notice, 
or one unusual track upon the road. He was 
untiringly on the alert. 

Meanwhile the weather had cleared up. 
The hot July sun had dried the mud com- 
pletely. The roads became so hard that there 
was no chance of tracking. Danny was sorry 
for this, for he was ever on the lookout for 
the footmarks of which he had a sketch in his 
book. Now there seemed no chance by this 
means of obtaining a clue. 


THE MILL POND 


27 


But before a month had gone by he had 
met with another stranger who seemed to form 
another link in the mysterious chain. 

To their pride and joy the ist Dutton Wolf 
Cubs had been invited by the Scouts to take 
part in a great field day. Danny had been 
given a quarter of a mile of road to patrol. It 
happened to be the lonely lane that led past 
the deserted mill. 

He had just concealed himself in the 
hedge when a market-cart rumbled by. A 
little ahead of him it stopped. The carter 
looked keenly up and down the road and 
all about him. Then, as if sure he was 
not perceived, he pushed aside his vegetable 
baskets, lifted up a piece of sacking, and 
helped a man to emerge from the bottom 
of the cart. Without a single word the man 
jumped down on to the road, and the cart 
lumbered on. 

The stranger stood for a moment looking 
about him suspiciously. He was a very 
ragged and dirty tramp, with a straggling 


28 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 

red beard and a great, bulgy sack on his 
shoulders. Presently, as if to make sure 
of his whereabouts, he began to plod along 
the road. 

Danny was after him like a flash, his rubber 
shoes making no noise on the road. It was 
real ‘^stalking’’ this time! Scanning every 
detail of the man’s appearance, Danny could 
find nothing to show that he was not a genuine 
tramp. But that which caught his eye was 
the sack. It was bulgy and ragged. Out of 
a hole hung a rabbit skin. But there was 
evidently something large and square in the 
sack as well. It looked as if it might be a box. 
And from inside this seemed to come a scrap- 
ing, scuffling noise, as if it contained some- 
thing alive. 

At this moment the tramp turned suddenly 
around and saw him. 

Danny was a boy who always had all 
his wits about him. He was a London boy, 
remember! He realised at once that he must 
put the man off his guard and not let 


THE MILL POND 


29 


him think that he had followed him out of 
suspicion. 

''Please, mister,'’ he said, "could you tell 
me the time?" 

The man was staring angrily at him out 
of a pair of little, pale blue eyes. He had 
evidently been startled at finding a Wolf 
Cub at his heels when he had thought himself 
quite alone! The innocent question must 
have reassured him, for he looked very much 
relieved. 

"It's three o'clock," he said gruffly. 

Danny was looking him over eagerly. What 
could he say next, so as not to have to go 
away ? Surely this strange man who crept out 
from among baskets in a cart, carried some- 
thing alive in a bag full of rabbit skins, and 
knew the exact time without a watch, must be 
a "suspicious character!" 

"I say, mister," he continued, skipping 
along innocently by the man, "are you col- 
lecting rabbit skins and bottles?" 

"Yes." 


30 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


‘‘Are you going to Dutton?’’ 

“Yes.” 

“Well, you Iqiow the pub. called ‘The Green 
Man’ ” 

“Yes, I know it well.” 

{Ah^ thought Danny, Vve caught you^ old 
sport! There^s not a pub, called The Green 
Man’^ at Dutton !) 

“Well,” he went on aloud, “just a bit fur- 
ther on, past the pub., there’s a little thatched 
house. That’s where my mother lives. She’ll 
give you some skins, ’cos we had rabbit-pie 
last night for supper. You will go to her, 
won’t you? ” 

“Yes, I’ll go there right enough,” said the 
man. 

(JVeHl see! thought Danny.) 

But the man was walking fast. He had 
very nearly reached the part of the road where 
Danny’s patrol ended. It seemed to the Cub 
that the most important thing in all the world 
just now was to follow up this man. But he 
knew that he must not fail in his duty. Senior 


THE MILL POND 


31 


Patrol-Leader Church had posted him on that 
road and said : 

‘‘Don’t leave your post without orders.” 
So he must stick to it. 

“Well, good-bye, mister,” he said. “Tve 
got to stay here ’cos I’m a sentry. Don’t 
forget to call for mother’s rabbit skins. 

“All right,” growled the man, and trudged 
on while Danny squatted down on the bank 
and watched him. 

“I bet he’s not going to the village!” he 
said to himself. “He’s a stranger here, but he 
wants to make out he’s not. And I’m pretty 
sure he’s not a real tramp, ’cos he has hands 
like a gentleman. Oh, I do wish I could follow 
him ! I wish it was a muddy day instead of 
this rotten dry weather — then I’d soon pick 
up his trail when this game’s over. I wonder 
if there’s not some way I could track him. ” 

He racked his brains for a moment and 
tried to remember what private detectives on 
the pictures do on such occasions. Suddenly, 
like a flash, he remembered a fairy story he 


32 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


had read in Hans Andersen, It was about a 
mother who wanted to know where her daugh- 
ter went off to in the night, so she sewed a 
little bag full of flour on to the girl’s dress and 
cut a hole in the corner of it, so that, as she 
went along, the flour ran out, and the mother 
was able to track the girl all through the 
streets. 

‘‘Wish I had a little bag full of flour,*’ 
thought Danny. But a Wolf Cub is never at 
a loss how to do things, once he has got hold 
of the idea. In a minute he had drawn his 
notebook out of his pocket and torn a number 
of pages out. With quick fingers he tore these 
up into wee scraps and put them into his 
cap. 

The man was already out of sight round the 
corner. Scrambling up the bank and through 
the hedge into a field, Danny sprinted along 
for all he was worth. 

Before long he was up with the man, who 
still plodded along, head bent, his sack on 
his back. Creeping like a little green snake 


THE MILL POND 


33 


through the hedge, Danny stole softly up be- 
hind him. 

He felt just as Cubs do in the Sheer Khan 
Dance y only this time it was real^ not pre- 
tend.’" Holding his breath and treading as 
softly as a cat, he crept so close that he could 
have touched the tramp. Still the man 
trudged on. Danny’s heart was in his 
mouth. 

Softly he straightened himself. Then he 
took a handful of the paper-scraps from his 
cap and slipped them into the torn pocket of 
the man’s ragged coat. Then he stood quite 
still and gradually crept sideways until he was 
under cover in the ditch. His heart was beat- 
ing fast. As he watched the retreating figure 
of the man he saw a little scrap of paper fly 
out here and there. 

‘H’ve got you!” said Danny, hugging him- 
self. It was all he could do not to give vent 
to a howl of joy that would have roused the 
very jungle! 

It was at this moment that an /‘enemy 


34 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


Scout’’ trod on a dry stick the other side of 
the hedge and set Danny on his guard. Lying 
flat on his tummy in the ditch and peeping 
through a patch of nettles, he caught sight of 
a flutter of red and grey that was unmistakably 
a Kangaroo shoulder-knot ! 

Creeping along the ditch, regardless of the 
hundred nettle-stings that raised great white 
lumps on his knees, Danny indulged in a little 
strategy. Taking off his cap, he arranged it 
on a stump so that it just showed above a 
mass of green and would be well in view from 
a gap in the hedge. 

Then he doubled along the ditch to where a 
hidden gap gave a beautiful chance for the 
enemy to cross the road, and, getting over a 
stile into the wood opposite, to get in touch 
with their own party. By this tempting gap 
Danny took cover. 

‘‘ I hope he sees my cap,” he said to him- 
self, ""then he’ll think I’m there, and will 
bring his party up to this fence.” Suddenly a 
bright idea struck him. "" I’ll make him have 


THE MILL POND 


35 


a look at it, ” he said. Standing cautiously 
up in the ditch, he picked up a stone and 
took careful aim. Plump — it fell among the 
nettles, just by the cap. ''That’ll make him 
think there’s a chap there, ” said the detective 
to himself with satisfaction. And sure enough, 
before long, the Kangaroos, thinking the sentry 
was safely ensconced in the ditch further up, 
were making their way with an unguarded 
amount of crackling towards the gap. Two 
minutes later Danny had taken three import- 
ant prisoners and sent them to the base "out 
of action.” 

"Jolly smart piece of work,” said Patrol- 
Leader Church, when the field was called’in at 
five o’clock. "I knew I had put a good man 
on to patrol that road, but I never thought 
he’d succeed in taking prisoners!” 

Danny’s heart glowed at the praise, but his 
mind was more intent upon the piece of real 
scouting he had on hand than on the game. 
When the other boys trooped home to tea, 
happy and hungry, Danny turned his eager 


36 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


steps in the direction of the lonely piece of 
road he had been patrolling. He forgot how 
hungry he was and how nice the cup of tea 
and the plum cake at home would be. There 
was work to be done. 

In about half an hour Danny was back at 
the place where he had last seen the tramp. 
It was a still, summer evening. Not a breath 
of wind stirred. Danny was glad, for it 
meant that the scent, in the form of the scraps 
of paper, would not have blown away. Yes! 
There was a little piece on the road. Here was 
another on the bank. Another — another — 
another! Now there was none for quite a 
long way. Then — a whole patch on the dusty 
road! Just here the tramp had been walking 
at the side of the road, where the dust was 
soft and white and thick. Joy of joys — his 
footmarks were distinctly visible! 

Out came Danny’s precious notebook, and 
in a moment he had drawn a quick sketch of 
the footprint and added its size in inches. 
Then he went on carefully. Every here and 


THE MILL POND 


37 


there a little piece of white paper showed dis- 
tinctly. He had reached the old mill. And 
sure enough the trail turned down the very 
path where he had followed the bicycle tracks 
six weeks ago! In the same way it seemed to 
indicate that the man had taken cover behind 
walls and hedges, so as not to be seen from the 
road or from the mill. Little did he know that 
he left a tell-tale track of white paper be- 
hind him! And as Danny reached the pond 
he had to put his hands over his mouth to 
suppress a laugh of delight. There, on the 
surface of the still, black water, showed a 
quantity of little scraps of white paper! 

Danny walked round the bank, thinking 
hard. What on earth could the man have 
got into the pond for ? 

There were no wet marks on the dust where 
he got out. It was the most mysterious thing 
he had ever come across. Here was a pond 
in which a man and a bicycle had disappeared, 
and also a tramp with something alive in a 
sack! Had they drowned themselves? No — 


38 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


for the Kangaroos had dragged the pond and 
nothing had been fished up. 

Suddenly Danny had an idea. 

‘‘There must be a kind of cave or cellar 
they get into from under the water!’’ he said. 
“I expect they are burglars or smugglers or 
forgers or something. And that’s where they 
hide their treasure. Then, after dark, they 
come up. ” He decided to have another try 
to make the Scouts take him seriously; but he 
was still sore at the memory of all the ridicule 
that had been heaped upon him before. 

“I’ll log it down, ” he said, taking out his 
notebook, “and after dark I’ll come back and 
lie in wait for him as he comes up. Then to- 
morrow I’ll make my report. ” 

He squatted down behind the ruined wall 
and began to write: 


“July 26, 1914. 

“Saw a tramp get out of a cart, where he 
was hiding. Followed him. He had some- 
thing alive in a sack, but he pretended they 


THE MILL POND 


39 


were rabbit skins and bottles. Said he knew 
a pub. called ‘Green Man’ in Dutton, which 
there isn’t. Tracked him down by scraps of 
paper. He must have got into Mill Pond, 
but he has not got out yet (6.30). 

“(Signed) D. Moor.” 


Then he went home to supper. 


CHAPTER IV 


ONE A.M. 

Night had fallen, soft and dark and still, 
when Danny climbed out of his little latticed 
window on to the roof of the porch. He could 
smell the honeysuckle though he could not see 
it. And somewhere a nightingale was singing. 
He had gone up to bed at 9 o’clock. His 
mother had come in and tucked him up, and, 
shutting the door, had gone downstairs. 

Now Danny scrambled down the trellis- 
work of the porch and was soon trotting softly 
along the road. As he got beyond the village 
his courage began to fail just a wee bit. The 
road was very dark and lonely. Great black 
fir trees stretched out weird arms towards 
him. An owl hooted. A rabbit scampered 
across his path with a whisk of white tail. 

40 


ONE A.M. 


41 


Once he jumped as a cow poked her head 
through a gap at him, and heaved a great sigh. 
Between the weird black branches of the pines 
he could see the little, white, sparkling stars 
winking at him. They reminded him of God, 
and that after all he was not quite alone. God 
must be pleased with him, because he was 
doing his best^ The lonely darkness ceased 
to be full of horror. He went on with a brave 
heart. 

At last he reached the pond. All was 
quite still. After listening intently for a few 
minutes, he flashed his electric torch on the 
water. The scraps of paper were still floating 
about. He walked round the bank, casting 
a ring of golden light on to the dusty ground. 
But there were no wet footmarks to show that 
someone had come up out of the water. 

‘‘ril keep watch,’’ said Danny, and he 
curled up in the shadow of the wall. 

It was a warm July night, but Danny’s 
teeth were chattering as he squatted alone 
beneath the ruined wall. He gazed fascinated 


42 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


at the black waters of the pond. Any moment 
a face, with a red, straggly beard, might come 
up, all wet and dripping and look at him. He 
half-wished he had not come. But he had, 
vowed to do all he could to solve the problem, 
and surely he was on the scent at last. 

The moments crept by and nothing hap- 
pened. Everything was very still, save for 
the occasional hoot of an owl. The world 
seemed fast asleep. Presently Danny began 
to nod. 

It must have been three hours later when 
he awoke, stiff and uncomfortable. Where 
was he? Oh yes! He jumped up quickly, 
rubbing his eyes. He had slept on guard. 
He blushed in the darkness. Just think — if 
he had been a soldier and his officer had come 
round — the shame of it! And suddenly he 
found he was simply longing for home and 
mother and bed. 

^'My duty,’’ he said between his chattering 
teeth. Switching on his electric torch, he 
went softly round the pond. But there were 


ONE A.M. 


43 


no wet marks on the parched, dusty bank; 
so no one had come up out of the water. 

From away across the valley stole the faint 
sound of a church clock. The four quarters 
rang out; Danny listened for the hour. One 
. . . chimed like a sad voice across the 
dim countryside. ""One o’clock,’’ whispered 
Danny. He could not resist the longing for 
home, and softly he made his way back on to 
the road. 

""Rh-rrru-um!” A great, grey car swung 
round the corner and hummed past Danny. 

""A.R. 1692,” he said to himself as he 
watched the red tail-light grow smaller and 
smaller in the distance. Almost from force 
of habit he fixed the number in his mind. 

Danny’s feet seemed to have acquired a 
nasty habit of tumbling over each other. He 
wondered why. And then he gave a big 
yawn. How lovely it would be to be in bed — 
all warm and safe and cosy, and, best of all, 
to hear mother snoring in the next room! It 
was so lonely out here. He trudged sleepily 


44 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 

on and round the corner towards Dutton. 
He was walking on the grass at the side of the 
road. A ditch ran along the hedge. 

Suddenly, almost at his feet, he heard a 
long, muffled whistle. He started violently, 
and then, remembering the law of the wild, 
he "'froze.’’ The next moment three whistle 
notes sounded, not quite so muffled, and 
coming, certainly, from the ditch. Then a 
strange, guttural voice, speaking in low tones. 
It was there, at his feet, in the ditch. What 
could it mean.? Danny, the sleepy little boy, 
was trembling with fear, but Danny the 
Detective was on the scent again. 

Creeping softly across the grass to the edge 
of the ditch he dropped on one knee and 
peered down. It was far too dark to see 
anything. So he strained his ears to try and 
catch this mysterious conversation. He soon 
found that, though he could hear every word 
distinctly, he could not understand it. It was 
in a foreign language! There seemed a lot 
of "ach,” and "gr-r-r” in it; very ugly it 


ONE A.M. 


45 


sounded. And the word ‘^so’’ seemed to 
come in it rather often. “Nine’^ was men- 
tioned still more often. Danny listened 
intently for any words he could recognise. 
Presently he heard ‘‘Sir Edward Grey’’ . . . 
quite distinctly. It did not convey much to 
him, but at least the words were English, and 
he stored them up. “Downing Street” . . . 
he caught, and, later on, “Asquith.” . . . 

It was a funny conversation. It kept 
breaking off suddenly, and there would be a 
long silence. Then it would go on for a few 
words and stop. And, somehow, the whole 
thing reminded him of how it sounded when 
the postmaster telephoned from the village 
post-office. 

Suddenly there was a movement in the 
ditch. “They’re coming out,” thought Danny. 
Like a rabbit he scuttled out of sight into a 
place where the bank in front of the ditch 
formed a kind of little, earthy grotto, half 
overgrown with bushes. He was hidden in the 
darkness, but he could see well himself. 


46 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


As he peered out, straining his eyes in the 
gloom, he saw a black figure rear itself out of 
the ditch and stand up against the grey star- 
spangled sky. He could see its outline quite 
clearly. It was that of a slight, smallish man. 
In his hand he held something that looked like 
about three yards of rather thick rope. For a 
moment he stood still, brushing the mud from 
his suit. It was at this moment, when silence 
was so essential, that Danny felt a violent 
tickle in his nose. 

He was going to sneeze ! 

^^A— hi ^A— hi A— ^zshu!’’ He tried 

to muffle it in his cap, but it was no use. The 
man started violently, then looked about him 
quickly. One step brought him close to 
Danny’s grotto. He had dropped his rope 
end, and against the grey sky Danny could 
see the outline of a revolver in his right 
hand. 

Slowly the man bent towards him, peering 
through the darkness. Seeing nothing, he 
stretched out his hand to feel. Cold sweat 


ONE A.M. 


47 

broke out all over Danny. In a second the 
man would have touched him. 

To keep still meant being caught for certain. 
To dash out and run would probably mean a 
bullet in his legs. The groping hand was very 
near his face. Suddenly an idea seized Danny. 
The man would not risk the danger of break- 
ing the night stillness with a shot if he thought 
that the sound he had heard had merely been 
made by a fox; nor would he bother to follow 
it up or be in any way disturbed or set on his 
guard by its presence. With a sudden move- 
ment he fastened his sharp little teeth in the 
hand. The man gave a muffled cry of pain, 
started back, and Danny, with the bark of a 
young fox, dashed out past his legs in a doubled- 
up position, and was soon running down the 
road under cover of the darkness. Leaping 
across the ditch and through a well-known gap, 
he threw himself down on the grass, panting. 
There was no sound of following footsteps. 
His ruse had succeeded. 

Cautiously Danny rose to his feet and 


48 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


began walking down the side of the hedge 
on the field side. He was making for home. 
Strangers with revolvers were not to be fol- 
lowed in the dark, even by detectives, when 
the latter were unarmed. But before long he 
had stopped short and was peering through 
the hedge. A little red light had caught his 
eye. Yes, it was the tail-light of a motor — 
A.R. 1692! It was the same car that had 
passed him — he remembered the number! 
The head-lights had been turned off. The 
great body of the car loomed like some huge 
monster in the darkness. Danny could just 
make out the form of a man sitting quite still 
in the driver’s seat. He seemed to be waiting 
for something. 

Perhaps the man who had been talking in 
the ditch was going to rejoin him. Danny, 
managing to overcome his fear of the revolver, 
decided to wait and watch. Before long there 
was a slight sound and the man he had seen 
before stepped on to the road from the grassy 
border that had muffled his approaching steps. 


ONE A.M. 


49 


The men exchanged a few words in the same 
guttural language Danny had heard coming 
from the ditch. Then the driver got down 
from the car and lit up the head-lights. A 
bright shaft shot along the road. 

Bending down, the man allowed his face 
to be caught in it for a moment, and Danny 
looked with all his eyes, so that he might 
remember every feature. 

He was a thick-set man with a square, 
black beard and thick-lensed, round glasses. 
An exclamation of annoyance from him 
brought his friend round to help adjust one 
of the lamps, and Danny had a glimpse of the 
second man’s face. He knew him in a moment ! 
It was the mysterious stranger of the bicycle 
incident, on whose track he had been for so 
long! 

The head-lights being successfully fixed up, 
the driver of the car went round to the back, 
and Danny watched, fascinated, while he 
removed the number-board and substituted 
for it one showing 323.” Then together 


50 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


the men raised the hood of the car, though it 
was a cloudless night. After moving about 
some time they both got into the car. But 
the automatic starter would not work, and 
the driver, grumbling to himself, climbed out 
again and went round to turn the handle. 

This brought his face once more within the 
light of the great lamps. Danny’s eyes 
opened wide at what he saw. The motorist 
was no longer a black-bearded, spectacled, 
man. He had now a bristling red moustache 
and his bright little blue eyes showed out from 
beneath rather bushy eyebrows! A moment 
later the car had hummed off down the road. 



Bending down, the man allowed his face to be caught in the 
bright light, and Danny looked with all his eyes, so that he might 
remember every feature. 



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V 


CHAPTER V 


THE DARK PASSAGE 

It was nine o’clock when Danny woke up the 
ne^xt day — a golden Sunday morning. At 
first he thought his night adventures had been 
a dream, and then he realised that It was all 
true, and jumped out of bed. He longed to 
tell someone about them. But, remembering 
the snubs he had received before, and that he 
had been accused of having lied, he deter- 
mined to keep his wonderful discoveries to 
himself. This adventure should be all his own. 
Danny the Detective would have a big tri- 
umph when the whole mysterious case was 
brought to light, and the wily strangers stood 
in the dock! His first Impulse was to make 
straight for the scene of last night’s adventure. 
Then, remembering that private detectives 
51 


52 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


as well as other people must fulfil their duty 
to God, he set off for church. And after 
all, he had much to thank God for! Last 
night he had had a very narrow escape. And 
also he had got the desire of his heart — a new 
and important clue. 

Church over, he dashed off to examine the 
ditch. Yes, there was his grotto — he could 
see it from afar. On reaching the place, the 
first thing that caught his eye was a long, 
snake-like something lying half hidden in the 
rank grass. He picked it up. It was a piece 
of rubber tubing about three yards long. 

‘‘That must be what the man dropped when 
I sneezed,’’ said Danny. “I expect he was so 
worried with my biting his hand that he forgot 
to pick it up!” 

The detective next turned his attention to 
the ditch. Yes, there were footmarks in the 
soft mud. And they were the very same that 
he had drawn a sketch of in his book that day 
he saw the stranger with the bicycle! There 
was a kind of dented, flattened place, as if 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


53 


someone had been lying in the ditch. Stick- 
ing out of the bank, half hidden by the rank 
grass, was an old moss-grown drain pipe. 
Putting his lips to it, Danny spoke a few 
words. His voice sounded hollow. He slipped 
the tubing down into it, and put the end to 
his ear. 

‘‘Some telephone!’’ he said, and fairly 
wriggled with delight. “So that’s what the 
chap was doing last night! The question is, 
who was he talking to, and what kind of a 
place does this pipe lead to.?” 

Search as he might he could find no sign of 
a cave or any hiding-place in the bank. 

“It must be fairly deep,” he said, “or they 
wouldn’t want three yards of tubing.” 

He poked a stone through the pipe, and 
heard it rattle down on to what sounded like 
a stone floor some way below. Then he sat 
up and considered. They weren’t just com- 
mon tramps or poachers, these people he was 
after, for they owned a car. They were evi- 
dently afraid the police were on the lookout 


54 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 

for them, or they would not have changed the 
number board and worn false beards ! 

There is some connection between this 
drain-pipe telephone affair and the mill pond, 
and I mean to discover what it is!’’ said 
Danny the Detective. 

After making his puzzling discovery of "‘the 
drain-pipe telephone” as he called it, Danny 
ran off to make his inspection of the mysterious 
pond. Running his eyes quickly over the 
bank he soon saw a clue that to the ordinary 
person would have meant nothing, but which 
revealed something very important to the 
“ Detective.” On the dusty bank of the pond 
there was a wet patch, as if something or 
someone had come up out of the water and 
stood and dripped for a moment 1 

The morning shadows had not yet moved 
away from the spot and allowed the hot July 
sun to dry the ground. Examining the wet 
patch more closely, Danny saw that there was 
duck-weed on it — the same stuff that dotted 
the surface of the pond. There was also some 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


55 


black mud — just the kind of slime one would 
expect to coat the bottom of the pool. 

^‘So/’ said Danny, ^^the chap who went 
down into the pond with his sack did come up 
the way he went down. He went down on 
Saturday afternoon and he came up in the 
night. What’s more, he came up after I had 
left the place at i a.m. I can’t help thinking 
he had something to do with the two chaps in 
the car.” 

The Detective scratched his head. It was 
so jolly puzzling. 

‘'Anyway, I missed him. And he’s not here 
now, so there’s no good in my staying here,” 
he said. 

An empty feeling under his Sunday waist- 
coat told him that it must be getting near one 
o’clock. At dinner his thoughts were far away, 
and his mother wondered why he was so silent. 
He determined to spend the afternoon having 
a long think. He would read up all his notes 
and try to put the various clues together and 
solve the mystery. He had a particular, secret 


56 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


place of his own where he always hid when he 
wanted to be quiet. It was in the ruins of an 
old abbey that stood on the grounds of Sir 
Edward Finch’s estate. 

The old, grey, half-crumbled buildings stood 
quite close to the little lodge where he lived. 
No one was allowed to go into this ruin. One 
reason was that Sir Edward was a funny old 
crank and hated strangers poking about on 
his property. Another was that the beautiful 
old tower of the church was supposed to be 
tottering and about to fall. In fact, two years 
ago a man had been killed by a part of the 
church falling on him. So a high, barbed-wire 
fence surrounded the ruin. The great iron 
gates were always kept locked, and no one 
ever went in. But one day Danny had dis- 
covered that there was a little wee path that 
led from his mother’s cabbage-patch to the 
hedge that divided the garden from the ruin. 
The path was only about ten inches wide. 
It must have been made by rabbits, and if 
rabbits could get through the hedge and the 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


57 


barbed-wire into the mysterious old abbey, a 
boy could get in, too. So Danny had followed 
the path and had soon scrambled through the 
thick hedge. To his delight he had found 
himself in a fascinating place. 

The turf was soft and mossy and full of 
harebells. And there was the old grey ruin to 
explore. Danny crept about in the traceried 
cloisters, where he loved to imagine the holy 
monks walking six hundred years ago with 
their sandalled feet. There was the room 
where he decided they must have had their 
meals. But most of all he loved the ruined 
church. Somehow it seemed very holy. He 
always used to take his cap off when he went 
in, though it was open to the blue sky, and 
carpeted with wild flowers. One day he had 
found a tomtit’s nest built between the mossy 
stones where the altar had been. 

Now, on this hot sleepy Sunday afternoon 
he crept out into the back-garden and filled 
his cap with gooseberries. Then he wriggled 
through the hedge and had soon curled up in a 


58 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 

warm corner of the cloisters with no one to 
see him but the rabbits. 

Danny had not had a V/iery restful night, 
having been on guard by the pond, and now 
the warm sun and his good dinner and the 
drowsy hum of the bees in the wild thyme 
made him very sleepy and he began to nod. 

Before longhe was fast asleep, and having a 
very strange dream. He thought he was back 
in the old days and that he was a knight in 
shining armour who had come to the abbey 
to pray before going to the Crusades. In his 
dream he saw the monks moving about in their 
white habits. And then he suddenly saw a 
horrid-looking fellow creeping about in the 
shadows all dressed in black and hiding a 
dagger beneath his wide sleeves. 

A traitor^ ’’ said Danny in his dream. And 
then he suddenly saw it was the man he had 
seen with the bicycle and again in the motor ! 
Drawing his long sword, he stepped forward, 
and — but at this exciting moment he woke 
up with a start. 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


59 


‘‘Danny, Danny!” someone was shouting. 
“Where are you, you young rotter? Danny, 
come on, weTe going bathing I ” 

He started to his feet and rubbed his eyes. 

“Here I am!” he called, emerging from the 
gooseberry bushes as if he had been there all 
the time. 

His Sixer and two Cubs were waiting for 
him. Very soon the four boys were running 
gaily off across the marsh with towels round 
their necks. 

It was only about ten minutes’ run down to 
the seashore. Before long the Cubs were 
splashing about in the cool green water. It 
was ripping! In the old London days Danny 
had bathed all the year round in the baths, but 
it was not half as jolly as this. All the same, 
his swimming-bath experience had been useful, 
for he had learnt to swim well, and to dive. 

“I can swim and float,” said Sixer Fred 
Codding, “but I can’t dive. Show us how 
you do it, Daniel.” 

Danny ducked down his head, chucked up 


6o DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


his heels, and vanished. The cool green water 
closed over his head. Everything looked so 
funny down there — all a lovely pale green 
colour, full of myriads of bubbles. Red and 
brown seaweed waved lazily on the pebbly 
bottom. Danny swam gently forward, look- 
ing for a stone to bring up to show the other 
chaps he had really been to the bottom of the 
deep pool. 

Suddenly, down there in the dim, bubbly 
water, among the shells and shrimps and sea- 
weed, a great idea came to him. He would 
dive down into the mill pond himself and see 
what there was at the bottom, and why those 
strangers were so fond of going down there! 
He swam quickly to the surface, his heart 
high with resolve. It would take some pluck 
to do it. "'But a chap’s not worth calling a 
Cub if he can’t do a thing like that!” he said 
to himself, as he dried vigorously and got into 
his clothes again. 

Tea was ready when Danny got in. He was 
as hungry as a wolf—or rather a Wolf Cub ! 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


6i 


But if he was to go down that day he must go 
before the sun set ; it was past six already. So 
he contented himself with a cup of tea and a 
small piece of bread and butter. "H won't 
give in to myself, " he said, thrusting his hands 
deep into his pockets, as his mother offered 
him a big slice of the most lovely plum cake. 

Running up to his room, he changed into a 
pair of old shorts, a cotton shirt, and some old 
gym. shoes. Then he set out along the well- 
known road that had proved to be so full of 
mysterious adventures. 

There was no sign of any one having been 
to the pond since the morning. Still, he could 
not be sure. He felt a strange feeling inside 
him, as he stood all alone on the bank and 
looked down into the water. The evening 
sun was shining full on it; he was glad; it 
would be easier to see when he was under. 
What would there be down there? He 
clenched his fists and said the Cub Promise 
between his teeth to buck him up. Then he 
suddenly remembered his dream and how 


62 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


brave he had felt when he was a Crusader- 
knight, about to challenge the lurking traitor 
in the Abbey. Before his courage had time 
to fail he dived, straight as an arrow, into the 
pond. 

It was very different down there from what 
it was in the sea. All was a murky, brownish 
colour. Black, slimy weeds waved about, like 
wicked little clinging hands. He sWam about 
gently but could see nothing unusual. Soon 
he had to come up for more air. Taking a 
very big breath, he dived again. This time 
he happened to be very near the side. In 
order to keep down and look well about him 
he caught hold of a big bunch of weed grow- 
ing on the wall of the pond. Suddenly, just 
before him, he saw a black, cavernous hole 
in the bank. It was about three feet across 
and seemed like the entrance to a passage, 
leading away from the bottom of the pool. 
But it was full of water, of course. 

Danny rose to the surface for breath, and 
ideas crowded into his mind. A passage 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


63 


leading away from the bottom of the pond! 
Then that was where the men went, and where 
the bicycle had disappeared to for which they 
had dragged the pond so carefully. But why 
did not all the water run away.? Then he 
remembered that water never rises above its 
own level. On that side of the pond the bank 
rose steeply towards the high ground where 
the ruined mill stood. If the passage led up 
in a steep incline, or in steps, it would very 
soon be on a level with the surface of the pond. 
The water, flowing into the passage, would 
rise as high as this, and no higher. The level 
of the mill and the road was high enough for 
the passage to rise beyond the water alto- 
gether, and still be underground. Did it do 
this.? The only way to find out was to dive 
again, swim into the passage, and see! He 
would have to take a very big breath to bring 
him up where the passage came up, and to let 
him get back if it did not seem to be rising. It 
was something of a risk. But Danny had 
nerved himself to anything. ^Hf I do find a 


64 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


passage it will be jolly dark/’ he said. And 
then he remembered that he had brought his 
pocket electric light, and had hidden it, with 
his handkerchief, knife, and two pennies, on 
the bank before diving. He would take his 
light down. Perhaps the water would not 
hurt the battery. Scrambling out on to the 
edge he soon found his torch, and stowed it 
away in the pocket of his shorts. Then, taking 
a mighty breath, he dived again, and swam 
straight into the dark passage. 

Almost at once his outstretched hands came 
in contact with something hard and slippery. 
It was the bottom step of a flight of stone 
stairs. A moment later Danny was half 
swimming, half scrambling up them. His 
store of air was very nearly exhausted when, 
to his intense relief, his head suddenly came 
up above the water, and he breathed again. 
It was pitch dark, and he was standing in 
water up to his neck. He was safe from 
drowning, however — that was one thing to be 
thankful for! He had reached the top step 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


65 


of the flight, and was walking on a slippery 
surface that seemed to be inclined uphill, as 
he found that before long his shoulders were 
out of the water, and then he was only waist- 
deep. He took out his electric torch and 
pressed the button. To his joy he found the 
battery was working, and a ray of golden light 
shot through the darkness. Turning the light 
from side to side he saw that he was in a low, 
vaulted passage, walled and roofed with stone. 
There was nothing else to see. The passage 
seemed to go straight ahead. There was 
nothing for it but to go on, and hope there was 
no one else down there! 

Danny had not walked many yards before 
his light glinted on something. Peering closer 
he saw that it was a bicycle leaning up against 
the wall. ‘‘So that’s where the bike went!” 
said Danny triumphantly, wishing the Kan- 
garoos could see it, as he remembered their 
cutting remarks the day they dragged the 
pond in vain. 

The bicycle was rusty and useless. The 


66 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


bareheaded stranger who had been in such a 
hurry that day on the road, and had said 
that he was going one way when he was really 
going another, must simply have been flying 
from his pursuers, and have thrown his stolen 
bicycle into the pond so as not to leave a clue 
when he dived down into his wonderful 
hiding-place ! 

So the mystery of the bicycle was solved at 
last ! Danny had been determined to solve it. 
But in working at it he had come on still more 
mysterious things. It was a big affair this. 
And now he felt himself well on the way to 
clearing it up. Had he not got into the most 
secret hiding-place of the gang.? With his 
heart beating fast with excitement he pressed 
on along the passage. He had reached dry 
ground at last. The air was musty and 
suffocating. Danny the Detective thought 
that this adventure would solve the whole 
problem; he little knew all that was to befall 
him and his country before the mystery 
would be finally brought to light. 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


67 


His heart beating fast with excitement, 
Danny pressed forward through the damp 
darkness. There was a silent horror about this 
place. Mildew stood on the walls. Black 
creatures scurried away beneath his feet, 
afraid of the light. How often Danny had 
longed to find a secret passage ! But now that 
he had really found one he shrank from going 
into the unknown darkness. If only there 
were another chap to talk to, to feel near! 
His teeth chattered with the cold, for he was 
soaking wet. But once more he remembered 
the Cub Law and did not give in. 

""My light won't last long if I keep it on," 
he said. Flashing it round to see his way, he 
noticed a small lantern hanging on the wall 
with a box of matches in a little niche. With a 
sigh of relief he took It down and lighted it. 
The candle light cast weird, flickering shadows 
on the wall as Danny hurried on. Every now 
and then he lifted the lantern high, looking 
about him. He must have gone nearly a 
quarter of a mile when, some five feet above 


68 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


his head, a faint streak of pale light shone 
through a small, round hole in the wall. 

"‘Daylight!"" whispered Danny. “I wonder 
where that hole goes to."" Then he suddenly 
remembered his adventure of i a.m. on Sunday 
morning. ""Why, that must be the drain-pipe 
telephone!"" he said. “This is where the man 
was who listened at the other end of the pipe 
while the one in the ditch talked in a funny 
language!’" 

Danny must have walked about half a mile 
when he was brought up short by a flight of 
stone steps. Mounting these, he found himself 
face to face with a low door made of some hard, 
black wood, studded thickly with iron nails 
and bands, red with rust. There was a massive 
lock and two heavy bolts. The bolts were not 
across the door, and Danny stepped forward 
eagerly, hoping that he would be able to open 
it. But, try as he would, the door baffled all 
his efforts. Cold and weary and disappointed 
he had at last to give up^the task. There was 
nothing for it but to go back. 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


69 


After a long, dark walk he reached the end 
of the passage once more and hung the lantern 
up on its hook. Then, bracing himself for 
the effort, he plunged again into the black 
water. 

The sun had just set in a glory of red and 
gold when Danny rose from the mill pool. 
The air of the summer evening was warm after 
the icy, tomb-like atmosphere of the passage. 
It was an infinite relief to see daylight again, 
and a comfort to hear the birds singing their 
goodnight songs, and to feel there were live 
things about. Wringing the water from his 
clothes, he set out for home at a brisk trot. 

Hullo, Danny,’’ said his Sixer the next 
morning, as the boys hurried to school, 
‘‘where on earth were you last night? You 
didn’t half miss something. All us chaps were 
paddling down on the beach, in front of the 
‘ Blue Boar,’ when an artist-chap came up and 
started painting.” 

“An artist?” said Danny, all interest at 
once, for, after being a detective, the next 


70 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


thing Danny wanted most in the world to be 
was an artist. 

‘‘Yes/’ said Codding, “and he wasn’t half 
a decent chap either. He let us come as close 
as we liked and watch him. And he gave us 
old ends of pencils and crayons and bits of 
paper. He’s staying at the ‘Blue Boar,’ ’cos 
he wants to draw heaps of pictures round here. 
And he said we might come and see him again 
this evening.” 

So, after tea, quite a little crowd of Cubs 
collected round the artist, who was as friendly 
as ever. After a time most of them drifted off, 
and Danny was left alone. The stranger, 
seeing his interest, gave him a nice, clean piece 
of paper and some old paints and let him have 
a try. 

A week passed, and every evening he would 
run down and squat on the ground by the 
artist, drawing. And while they drew the 
artist asked him lots of questions about 
Dutton, and the people, and the country 
round. Danny, being a Wolf Cub, was 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


71 


delighted to answer them all, promptly and 
politely, and, if he did not know the necessary 
information, did his best to find it out for his 
new friend. When he was tired of drawing 
he would look at the sketch-books the artist 
kept in his satchel. The pictures were mostly 
of harbours and hills and fields. One day he 
came on one that puzzled him. 

‘‘What a funny one this is!’’ he said. 

“Ah!” said the artist. “I’ll tell you why 
that one looks funny. It is because I was 
sitting right up on the top of a very high 
church tower when I drew that. And, look- 
ing down, all the country was spread round me 
like a map, and I looked down on the roofs of 
the houses and the tops of the trees.” 

“Oh,” said Danny, “I see!” He was just 
looking at a funny little sketch he had found 
in an inner pocket of the satchel. It was of 
Dutton, and showed the harbour and the 
church and the village, and the roads all 
round. And it was very much like the one 
done from the church tower. It puzzled him. 


72 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


because Dutton Church had a spire, and no 
one could sit up on that and paint ! 

‘Tt’s very funny,’’ said Danny thoughtfully. 

^"What’s funny.?” asked the artist. 

‘‘This sketch. You must have been up 
somewhere high when you drew it. But we 
have no church tower here.” 

The artist dropped his pencil and turned 
round quickly on Danny. 

“What d’you mean.?” he said sharply. 
“What sketch.? Give it to me.” And he 
snatched it out of the boy’s hand and, fold- 
ing it, put it in his breast-pocket. 

Danny looked keenly at the man. Why 
v/as he so flurried and excited .? His detective 
instinct smelt a rat at once. 

“Where did you sit, sir, when you did that 
sketch.?” he asked with innocent eyes resting 
on the artist’s face. 

“I, oh — I don’t remember,” said the man. 

“But you must have been up high some- 
where.” 

“No, I wasn’t,” said the artist shortly, and 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


73 


changed the subject. But Danny was not to 
be put off so easily. He meant to find out 
why his friend had suddenly turned ^'snuffy,” 
and why he had told a lie, for any one could 
see the sketch had been drawn from above. 
Sitting silently on the ground, Danny thought 
deeply. Could it have been drawn from the 
roof of the Hall.'^ No! — for the Hall and its 
lake and gardens came into the picture. 
There was only one other high building in 
Dutton — the ruined tower of the Abbey. The 
man must have done his sketch from there! 
But how had he got up And why was he so 
mysterious about it.^ 

“Sir,’’ said Danny, “how did you manage 
to get up the tower to do that sketch.? The 
door is always locked and the tower is 
dangerous.” 

The man started at the question, and looked 
closely at Danny, a frown on his face. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. 
“Run along, now, and don’t go on bothering 
me — I ’m busy. ” 


74 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


Of course Danny examined the door of the 
tower, but, as usual, it was locked, and there 
were no signs that any one had broken into 
the Abbey ruins. But before long he had 
made a curious discovery about his artist 
friend. Another friend of Danny’s — a fisher- 
man — had promised to take him out on a 
fishing expedition, if he could manage to 
wake up, and get to his cottage by 5 a.m. It 
was terribly early to have to get up, but, with 
the help of an alarum clock, Danny managed 
to wake. The whole village seemed fast asleep 
as he crept out into the chill, dewy morning. 
Not a soul was about. He was trotting along 
the road at scouts’ pace,” whistling, when, 
to his surprise, he suddenly saw the artist 
walking quickly towards him ! 

‘‘ Hullo, sir !” he cried, with friendly pleasure. 

But the artist had started on seeing the Cub, 
and was not looking over-pleased at this early- 
morning encounter. 

Scanning the man with curious eyes, Danny 
noticed that his rough tweed suit looked wet. 


THE DARK PASSAGE 


75 


To make sure, he took hold of the artist’s 
arm, as if by a friendly impulse. Sure, enough, 
his coat was wringing wet, and, peering more 
closely, Danny saw little scraps of duck-weed 
sticking to it. His thoughts flew at once to 
the mill pond. 

But before Danny had had time to think 
much of this discovery, his quick eyes had 
noted something else. 

“ Look, sir, ” he said, you’ve torn a big piece 
out of your coat! And one of the buttons, 
too!” The artist glanced down. 

‘‘ So I have, ” he said, a little uneasily. 
Then he hurried on, and Danny was left stand- 
ing in the road. He gave up his idea of going 
fishing and decided to go on the trail again. 
Here was a new, important clue — the friendly 
artist, so full of questions and kindness, was 
one of the stealthy gang! 

He determined to go to the pool and find 
out where and how the man had torn such a 
great piece out of his coat. 

As he passed the drain pipe in the ditch, he 


76 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


paused and looked at it. He was standing 
on the bank, his hand resting on a telegraph- 
pole, when something made him glance up. 
Just above his head, a torn scrap of cloth, with 
a button sewn to it, was hanging on a bent 
nail in the post. 

Reaching up, Danny unhooked it. Yes, it 
was the artist's button! So he had been climb- 
ing a telegraph-pole! What on earth for? 
Danny was more puzzled than ever. But it 
was certainly a "'clue," and he logged it in 
his notebook, with the other particulars con- 
cerning the artist. 

The pool revealed no more secrets, except 
that someone had certainly climbed out of it 
lately, and left wet marks on the bank. 

"My word, but I won't half keep a sharp 
lookout on that chap," said Danny to him- 
self, as he walked home. But he had two 
pieces of news to learn when he reached 
Dutton. One was that the artist and his 
portmanteau had departed in a cart for the 
station; and the other that the newspapers 



“ Look, sir,” he said, “ you’ve torn a big piece out of your coat! And 

one of the buttons, too! ’’ 







THE DARK PASSAGE 


77 


had very serious news in them. The quarrel 
between Germany and the Balkan States that 
had been attracting attention was spreading 
to something wider. “It will end in a great 
war,” people said. In a few days came the 
news that Germany had broken all treaties, 
and was trampling on little Belgium. England, 
standing for fair play, must come in. On 
August 4th, England had declared war on 
Germany. 

“ If only we could do something, ” everybody 
felt. The Dutton Scouts and Wolf Cubs fairly 
ramped with impatience to be called out on war 
service. Their chance came sooner than they 
expected. And sooner than he expected came 
the solution to the great mystery that had 
puzzled Danny the Detective for so long. 


CHAPTER VI 


spies! 

Four days after war was declared, on August 
8th, a motor-bike dashed into the village, 
and from it jumped the District Commis- 
sioner. Before long, he, the Scoutmaster, 
and three of the Patrol-Leaders were shut 
into the Scout Headquarters; the Cubs 
hung about outside, longing to know what 
was on. 

The Commissioner’s news was that the War 
Office urgently called on Scouts to guard the 
trunk cable-line from being tapped or cut in 
a certain area, day and night, at once, until 
further orders. German spies were suspected 
of tampering with most important telegraph 
wires. Government secrets were getting out, 
wrong messages were coming through. Also, 
78 


SPIES! 


79 


messages were somehow getting through to 
Germany. 

The Dutton Scouts were to patrol six 
miles of the road. The three Patrol-Leaders 
dashed off on their bikes. In an hour, the 
troop, in full kit, was patrolling the road and 
ready to challenge any doubtful person. 

Spies! The very word thrilled Danny. 
And suddenly his heart stood still, and then 
went on at a great rate. Spies ? That was it. 
His mysterious strangers were German spies, 
and they had some secret way of communicat- 
ing with Germany! 

The hot afternoon sun beat down on the 
dusty road that wound like a long white ribbon 
between the fields and woods. Two and two, 
the Scouts marched up and down, each couple 
along their allotted distance. With keen eyes 
they scanned the face of every passer-by. 
Now and then they challenged a person of 
doubtful appearance. 

Once the excitement was great, when a dis- 
reputable-looking man utterly refused to an- 


8o DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


swer, and tried to pass on, as if he had not 
heard. The two Ravens took him in charge, 
and marched him off to the police station. 
But, after all, he turned out to be a deaf and 
dumb tramp, well known in the neighbouring 
workhouse. 

^"You were quite right to take him up,” 
said the Commissioner, when he heard of this. 
'‘At such times we must take no risks.” 

It was hot work patrolling the roads. The 
Ravens and Lions took on the day duty, and 
the Otters and Kangaroos, in charge of Senior 
Patrol-Leader Church, were told off for the 
still more important night work. The Cubs 
looked on with longing eyes. Could they do 
nothing .? 

Before long their turn came. They were 
entrusted with the distributing of rations 
to the Scouts on duty. Two Sixes undertook 
the food, and the two others the drink; and 
the thirsty Scouts were indeed glad of it. 
But the Cubs’ proudest moment came when 
the order was issued that the Scouts — one 


SPIES! 


8i 


Patrol at a time — should knock off duty for 
half an hour, for tea, and that Cubs should 
take their place, and patrol the road in com- 
pany with the Scout left on duty, one out 
of each couple. It was service for the King! 
They were guarding England from the Ger- 
mans, and helping to keep her secrets from 
the enemy! Each Cub’s heart swelled with 
pride, as he marched by the side of his Scout. 

He could almost imagine that a rifle with 
a fixed bayonet rested on his shoulder. Be- 
hind every tree he almost saw a German. He 
simply itched to say, ‘^Halt! Who goes 
there?” 


CHAPTER VII 


A WHITE FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 

And meanwhile, what of Danny! Was he 
sharing in the prid^ and joy of the Pack, in 
its important work? No; Danny was not 
feeling very cheerful, for he was conscious 
that for the first time since he had been a Cub 
he was failing to do his duty. Why? Because 
he was giving in to himself, to his own pride 
and ambition, and thinking of his own glory 
before the safety of his country. 

Here he was, knowing a large number of 
important particulars about a dangerous gang 
of spies. He knew their hiding-places; their 
footprints; the faces and appearance of sev- 
eral of them. He knew mysterious things 
about them that he did not understand. His 
country was in great peril; the Scouts were 

82 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 83 


called out to try and catch these very Ger- 
mans — while he kept his secret to himself. 
A voice inside him said: 

‘‘Danny, it’s your duty to go and report all 
you know to the police, at once. ” 

But Danny frowned, and answered: “I 
won’t. If I do that, the police and the soldiers 
and the Scouts will take all my clues that I’ve 
spent months in finding, and they will catch 
the spies, and have all the fun and get all the 
honour and glory. They are my spies — I will 
catch them myself. And all the beastly peo- 
ple who laughed at me and said I was telling 
lies will see I really am a detective. And 
p’raps the King will hear about me. ” 

But still the voice inside him said: “A Cub 
does not give in to himself. England is in 
danger — ^what does it matter if you get the 
glory or not, as long as her enemies are 
caught.?” But Danny would not listen. He 
felt sure his great chance had come. To- 
night he would solve the mystery, and catch 
the spies red-handed. Once he had found 


84 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


them at it — then he would not mind calling 
the Scouts or police to his help. But he felt 
very unhappy inside, as people always do who 
do wrong with their eyes open, and on pur- 
pose. 

Danny had meant to stay out all night look- 
ing for the spies. But, as luck would have it, 
his mother caught him as he was creeping out, 
at nine o’clock, and packed him off to bed, 
locking his bedroom door. He decided at 
once to get out pf the window. But, oh, 
bother! — there was his mother talking over 
the garden gate to Mrs. Jones from next door. 

He waited and waited, but they would not 
go away. Tired out, he decided to lie down on 
his bed for a little while, and get out as soon 
as he heard their voices stop and knew the 
coast was clear. But when you are very sleepy, 
and lie down on your ''bed, the chances are 
that you fall fast asleep. And this is exactly 
what Danny did. 

The church clock was striking twelve when 
he awoke with a start and sat up. Why was 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 85 


he lying on his bed in uniform f Then he re- 
membered. ‘"Slack little beast/’ he called 
himself. He had slept instead of going out 
spy-hunting! He jumped off his bed, feeling 
about for his cap. 

Hark! What was that.? A deep, distant 
humming. Was it a motor car on the road? 
No, it seemed to come from above ! It must 
be an aeroplane. Softly Danny crept to the 
window. Yes, the whirring, humming sound 
certainly came down faintly from high, high 
up in the starry, purple sky. Perhaps it was 
a German aeroplane! 

Danny’s eyes were fixed on that part of the 
sky whence the sound seemed to come. This 
happened to be exactly over the tower of the 
ruined Abbey, whose black outline stood out 
distinctly against the stars. Suddenly, like 
a faint flicker of summer lightning, a white 
glow appeared for a moment over the tower, 
as if a bright light had been flashed further 
down, inside, only visible from above. And 
between the cracks of the half-ruined walls 


86 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


Danny saw a gleam shine for a moment, and 
then go out. The detective had had his sus- 
picions about that tower ever since the day • 
he had decided that the artist spy must have 
been up there. And yet he had not been able 
to discover anything about it. Now he was 
certain something was wrong. 

The German spies were there, up in the 
tower! 

They had flashed a light in signal to the 
aeroplane. Even as he listened breathless, 
the aeroplane buzzed, as if putting on a higher 
speed, and then sped off in a southerly di- 
rection. 

Ve got you,’’ hissed Danny, between his 
clenched teeth, as he climbed out of the 
window, and down the rose-covered porch. 

He meant to try and find out something 
more from the ruined Abbey, and then make 
his report to the Scouts on the night patrol. 
He, the detective, would lead them to the 
tower, where his prisoners would be caught 
like rats in a trap. He would show them the 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 87 


secret passage in the pond. He would explain 
the drain-pipe telephone. He would identify 
the prisoners. There would be the bicycle 
man, and the other in the motor car, and the 
tramp, and the artist. He, Danny, would be 
the hero of this adventure. 

With beating heart, he crept down the 
kitchen garden and between the gooseberry 
bushes. Through the hedge he crawled, and 
out on to the mossy turf. It was soaking 
wet with dew. The pale moonlight shone 
down on the Abbey, giving it a mysterious 
air, and casting very black shadows. Sud- 
denly Danny remembered his dream. So it 
was coming true! There was a ^'traitor’’ in 
the Abbey ruin. And he mast prove himself 
to be the gallant crusader of his dream. He 
gripped the stick he was holding, and it seemed 
to him to be a long, bright sword. He glanced 
down at himself, half expecting to see the 
red Cross of St. George on his breast, the shin- 
ing armour. But there was only a green jer- 
sey and bare, brown knees. 


88 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


‘‘Yet, 1 am a knight of St. George — all 
Scouts and Wolf Cubs are,” he told himself. 
“Oh, help me to be brave!” he whispered as 
he stole forward into the shadows. And truly 
he had need of help — more need than he 
knew. 

Stepping softly into the dark cloisters, 
Danny held his breath and listened. There 
was no sound. Slowly he advanced to the 
door of the tower. Here he flashed on his elec- 
tric light. The door was fast shut. Then, 
on the stone floor of the cloister something 
caught his eye, — wet footprints, as if someone 
had walked from the dewy grass, on to the 
smooth grey flags! Kneeling on the ground 
Danny examined them. They led to the door. 
Where did they lead from? Here was a 
chance of discovering how the spies had en- 
tered the ruin. 

Looking about him warily, Danny crept for- 
ward into the darkness, flashing on his light 
for a moment now and then to see that he was 
still on the track. About twelve yards on, 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 89 


the footprints suddenly ceased. Glancing 
around to discover the cause of this, Danny 
saw that there was a large, jagged hole in the 
wall, at about the height of his shoulder. The 
man must have dropped through this into 
the cloister. In a moment he had clambered 
through, and found himself standing in the 
moonlight in that part of the ruin known as 
the Abbot’s Garden. Beneath his feet was 
long, dew-soaked grass. How could he dis- 
cover from what direction the spy had come.^ 
Tracking was impossible. He was stumped. 

After all, delay might be causing serious 
danger. He had better retrace his steps 
quickly, get out of the Abbey, and go to make 
his report that the spies were in the tower. 
Turning round to climb back through the hole 
in the wall, Danny came face to face with 
something that nearly made his hair stand 
on end! 

Exactly behind him, peering through the 
hole in the wall, was an evil face, the two small 
pale eyes gleaming in the moonlight; the barrel 


90 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


of a revolver, like a round, black, hollow eye 
fixed on him in a deathlike stare. 

“Hands up!’’ hissed the man. Standing 
quite still Danny met the small, blue eyes so 
intent upon him, and slowly his hands went up. 
It all felt like a dream; it was, again, the face 
of the “traitor” — the face of the stranger with 
the bicycle. 

It seemed hours before the man spoke again, 
and all the time the black, vacant eye of the 
revolver seemed to be staring at a spot in the 
middle of Danny’s forehead. 

“Stand still and speak not one word!” 
whispered the man, and began to climb through 
the hole, keeping the revolver pointed at 
Danny, the while. Then, without a word, he 
took him firmly by the collar, tapping the 
back of his head with the pistol. 

“It’s loaded,” he whispered. “If you call 
out or try and run away, I shoot. Now, walk 
with me, quietly!” 

With the cold barrel against the back of 
his neck, there was nothing for it but to obey. 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 91 


Cold sweat broke out on Danny’s forehead, 
as together the strange pair walked silently 
over the grass, in the shadow of the ruined 
walls. 

Their feet made no sound on the long, wet 
grass as they walked across the Abbot’s Gar- 
den, keeping in the black shadow cast by the 
half-ruined walls of the church. Danny seemed 
almost stunned. He could not fully realise 
the horror of his position. He found himself 
vaguely admiring the delicate shadows cast 
on the grass as the moonlight poured down 
through the Gothic traceries of the windows. 
In his ear he heard the quick breathing of 
the spy. The cold barrel of the revolver 
touched his neck. The man’s fingers gripped 
the collar of his jersey and forced him to walk 
on. Was it a horrible dream, or was he really 
alone, defenceless, and in the oower of a danger- 
ous enemy 

They had stepped quickly across the brilliant 
''moonlit space,” and stood now in the shadow 
of the Abbot’s House — a low, square building 


92 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


standing away from the rest of the ruin. The 
arch over the doorway had fallen in, blocking it 
up completely. Ivy grew thick on the walls. 
On a level with Danny’s head was the sill of 
a Gothic window. Slipping the revolver into 
his coat pocket, the German lifted Danny by 
the back of his belt, and, swinging him up, 
dropped him through the dark aperture of the 
window. . He fell on his hands and knees on the 
stone floor, rough with pieces of broken stone. 
Though bruised and cut, he jumped up quickly. 
Was there a chance of escape before that cruel 
hand was on his shoulder again, the revolver 
threatening certain death 

He glanced up at the window. But even at 
that moment the grey patch of sky was 
blocked out by the form of a man climbing 
through. A moment later the spy dropped on 
to the ground, and his groping hands touched 
Danny’s face & he crouched, trembling, in a 
corner. Grasping his wrist in a grip like steel, 
the spy dragged him across the dark room, 
mutteririg an oath in German as he tripped on 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 93 

a large stone. Stopping suddenly, he seemed 
to be feeling his way. Then Danny found 
himself being led down some steps and 
through a doorway. 

His eyes ached with trying to pierce the 
darkness, he longed to see where he was. But 
it startled him considerably when a bright 
ray of light shot through the gloom. The spy 
had turned on a brilliant electric torch. 

By its light Danny saw that they were in a 
small, vaulted cellar, damp earth beneath 
their feet. There seemed no way out of this 
narrow place, except up the stairs they had 
just descended. But even as Danny noted 
this the man turned his light on to the stone 
wall and revealed to view a low, rusty door. 

Taking a large key from his pocket, he in- 
serted this in the lock and turned it with a 
grating sound. Slowly the heavy door swung 
inwards, its hinges giving forth a weird groan 
that brought to Danny’s mind all the horrors 
he had ever read of or imagined concerning 
dungeons and subterranean prisons. Grip- 


94 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


ping his arm, the spy dragged him through the 
low archway, and, turning, shut the door 
and locked it. Glancing quickly about him, 
Danny recognised the place at once. It was 
the passage he had discovered leading from 
the mill pool. This iron-studded door was the 
one that had baffled all his efforts when he 
had tried to open it from the inside. 

Once in the underground passage the man 
seemed to lose all fear, and dropped his cau- 
tious manner. Turning on Danny he poured 
forth a torrent of abuse, half in German, half 
in English. Then, with a savage kick, he 
flung him on to the ground. After standing 
for a moment as if considering what to do 
next, he drew from his pocket a piece of stout 
cord. Cutting this into two, he knelt down 
and tied Danny’s feet securely together. 
Forcing the boy’s hands behind his back, he 
knotted the cord about his wrists. Then he 
stood over Danny, a sardonic grin on his face. 

^There,” he said, with a snarling laugh, 
^There, young Scout, or what you call yourself. 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 95 


no more harm will you be able now to. do.” 
Turning on his heel, he walked a few paces 
down the passage and then came back, as if 
a thought had struck him. Taking a large, 
silk handkerchief from his pocket, he gagged 
his young prisoner. 

‘"There, little English pig!” he said. “Now 
you will disturb no one. ” And with a cruel 
laugh, he walked quickly away. 

Turning his head, Danny watched the re- 
treating figure from where he lay on the cold 
stone floor. He gazed at the dancing light of 
the torch until it grew fainter and fainter, 
and suddenly disappeared round a corner. 
Then in the lonely darkness a great sob rose 
in his throat — a sob of despair. 

He was alone, quite alone, underground. 
His feet were tied so that he could not get up, 
his hands bound so that he could not move. 
There seemed no possible way of escape. 
Would he be left here to die of cold and 
starvation.? Or would the spies come back 
and do something horrible to him ? The silence 


96 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


seemed to throb and sing in his ears. His eyes 
ached with peering into the darkness. And, 
lying there, he realised the sad truth that he 
had brought it all on himself. Why had he 
been such a little fool and tried to catch 
these Germans single-handed.^ For the sake 
of his own glory he had risked the safety of 
England. Out of personal pride he had with- 
held important information. And now here 
he was lying helpless and useless, while from 
the tower the spies were signalling to the 
enemy, and this man was escaping — or set- 
ting out, perhaps, to tamper with the cables 
in some mysterious way, and so send Eng- 
land’s secrets to the Kaiser! 

There was no one now to warn the police. 
He had been given the chance to serve his 
country, and he had not taken it ; he had ‘"given 
in to himself. ” Laying his face on the cold 
floor, he gave up all hope, and a big, hot tear 
rolled down his cheek. 

But there was still a spark of courage in 
his heart; a bit of pluck that always remains 


A FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT 97 


in a Scout when all the spirit of the ordinary 
boy has gone. He was a Cub; lie would not 
give in. ‘‘O God, ’’ he whispered in the damp 
darkness, '"give me another chance. I will 
not fail this time. I will do my duty. I will 
not give in to myself. 

Rolling against the wall, his face struck on 
the sharp corner of a projecting stone. A 
brilliant idea came into his head! Wriggling 
himself round as best he could, he managed 
to get the cord that bound his wrists against 
the sharp stone. Then, scraping and saw- 
ing, he set to work to cut through the rope. It 
was a long job and a painful one. Soon he 
felt the warm blood trickling down his sleeves. 
The pain made him feel quite sick. At last 
he felt he must give up. But, remembering 
he was a Cub, he clenched his teeth and de- 
termined that no pain or fear should break 
his courage. Suddenly the cord gave, and 
Danny found his hands free! 

It was the work of a moment to untie his 
feet. Feeling that the battle was already 


98 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


half won, he jumped up, his heart full of 
joy and gratitude. God was giving him 
another chance. He was to find a way of 
escape. Taking his little torch from his 
pocket, he pressed the button, and a ray of 
light pierced the darkness. 


CHAPTER VIII 

TAPPING THE CABLE 

The first thing that Danny noticed was some- 
thing that had not been there before when he 
had explored the passage. It was something 
that had happened since the German had 
gone away with the light. 

It was a great crack in the stone wall ! 

A huge stone — the very one he had been 
pushing and rubbing against to cut his bonds — 
had shifted its position. Here, surely, was 
the opening to a secret way out of the passage ! 
Pushing the stone gently Danny found that it 
swung round on a pivot, just allowing room 
for a man to pass. 

Stepping through, he flashed his light about 
him. He was in a great, arched vault. 

Hanging on a pillar just in front of him was 
99 


100 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


a lantern, containing a candle end, and a box 
of matches. Thankfully Danny took this 
down from its hook, for already the light was 
getting faint — the battery was giving out. 
Lighting the lantern he held it aloft. As its 
yellow light flickered in the dark corners, and 
between the massive pillars, a sight met his 
eyes that sent a thrill of horror and excite- 
ment through his heart. 

Standing in the narrow aperture of the secret 
door, Danny gazed in fascinated horror at the 
scene. 

Before him a great, low hall stretched away 
into the darkness, so that he could not see 
the end of it. Massive pillars supported the 
vaulted roof, which was not more than eight 
feet high. And amid the dust, and the sense 
of old days long gone by, of a dead, forgotten 
past, he had come all unexpectedly on war 
and its most deadly instruments lurking, 
hiding, and, somehow, terribly alive and 
modern. 

For there, row upon row, shining, perfect, 





There, row upon row, shining, perfect, ready for use, lay a vast store of machine guns. 












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TAPPING THEXAteLE 


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ready for use, lay a vast store of machine 
guns. In the yellow light of the guttering 
candle they seemed to fix a hundred black 
and hollow eyes upon the boy, like so many 
traitors startled in their hiding-place. Belts 
of ammunition lay like piles of coiled snakes; 
cases, boxes, rose in pyramids to the roof. 
Rifles were stacked against the wall. 

A kind of helpless horror filled Danny. It 
was all so tremendous, so prepared, so very, 
very unexpected. His knees knocked to- 
gether, his heart seemed to thump against his 
ribs. A great lump rose in his throat. And 
then, as he gazed with a kind of numb horror, 
the truth crept into his mind that this great 
army of death-dealing implements was not 
alive; was, in fact, weak, useless, powerless. 
That he was alive! That he, in his small self, 
had more power than all these guns, for he had 
life, will, a human brain, and courage. These 
traitorous slaves of Germany must cower be- 
fore him; he had found them out; and surely 
he had found them out in time ! 


102 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


The detective Instinct in him tempted him 
to explore the vault. But the voice of duty 
had become the loudest in Danny’s ears at 
last. Curiosity and ambition must have no 
say. He had been trusted with a momentous 
secret. Over England hung the possibility of 
a great catastrophe. Here was his duty — to 
get out of this place without a single moment’s 
delay, to make his report as clearly as pos- 
sible to those who could take action. With 
his life he would guard this secret; and if the 
carrying of it, the delivering of it, cost him his 
life, he would not be afraid to offer it. He 
had not taken his chance when it was easy. 
Now that it was hard, nothing would hold 
him back. But caution as well as courage 
was necessary. Turning round, he entered 
the passage once more and began to walk 
quickly and as silently as possible in the 
wake of the German spy. 

A mile of passage lay before him. At the 
end of it the steps descended, as he knew, into 
the chill waters of the pool. He would have 


TAPPIlte THE CABLE 103 

to descend these steps. Gradually the water 
would creep up to his knees, his waist, his neck. 
A big breath, a duck, four , five, six strong 
strokes, and his head would be above the sur- 
face, he would be breathing the pure air of 
the upper world; he would be free! 

And yet, what lay between him and this 
freedom He knew not at all. He dared not 
try to imagine. But bracing up his spirit with 
a brave determination to forget self and put 
duty first, he pressed on. If his heart quailed, it 
was at the thought of entering the black water. 
What if he met an enemy down there So 
intent was his mind upon this possible horror 
that he was startled and taken aback at the 
strange sight and sound that reached him 
simultaneously as he rounded a sharp bend 
in the passage. 

'‘Buzz, buzz, buzz-buzz, buzz!’’ broke on 
his ears. And there, some twenty yards away, 
stood the German who had captured him an 
hour ago. He was standing half-turned away, 
wholly intent upon an apparatus fixed on the 


104 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


wall. From this the buzzing sound proceeded. 
Several wires rose from it, up the wall, disap- 
pearing through the round hole that Danny 
had discovered before as the drain pipe by 
which the spies talked together through the 
speaking-tube. 

Now he realised at once that sometning far 
worse was on foot than a mere conversation 
with a fellow-spy in a ditch. The man was 
using a telegraph apparatus. He was doing 
that which the police had feared might hap- 
pen, and which the Scouts had been called out 
to prevent, namely, tapping the cables — listen- 
ing here in his safe hiding-place to the secret 
communications of England’s statesmen; sub- 
stituting in their place false messages. 

A kind of impetuous rage filled Danny. He 
clenched his fists, and his whole body quivered 
with a desire to throw himself, tooth and nail 
upon this spy, eavesdropping, sucking in 
England’s secrets. But what was he, a little 
boy, against this man — armed, as he knew, 
with a revolver Yes, there lay the sinister 


TAPPING THE CABLE 


105 


little weapon on the shelf that held the 
candle. 

Danny’s first impulse on seeing the enemy 
had been to drop to the ground, at the same 
time extinguishing his candle. Now he squat- 
ted hidden by the darkness, his eyes fixed in 
fascinated horror on the scene. Following 
up the wires with his eyes to where they dis- 
appeared through the pipe, he asked himself 
how they could be connected with the cable. 
Then, like a flash, he remembered the tele- 
graph pole that rose from out a mass of nettles 
quite close to the drain. Before him rose the 
picture of the artist-spy, on that sunny morn- 
ing at 5 A.M., coming along the road with a 
piece torn off his coat, and the finding of the 
piece hooked on the nail in the post a few 
minutes later. That was the day before war 
was declared. 

Clue was fitting into clue like the pieces of 
a jig-saw puzzle. The detective’s heart beat 
fast with excitement. Then, like a cold hand 
crushing the hope out of him, came the realisa- 


io6 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


tion that the man with the buzzer stood full 
in his path, preventing him from reaching the 
end of the passage with the steps and the water 
that led to freedom. He was balked ! 

Never before in his life had Danny so longed 
to be a man, to be big and strong and a match 
for this spy. Then he would have crept up the 
passage and, springing on the man, grappled 
with him, flinging him to the ground there to 
leave him, bound and helpless while he made 
his escape, and bore his secret safe with 
him. 

But what chance would a boy have against 
this enemy? Danny did not lack courage for 
the attempt, but he well knew that it would 
be a throwing away of all possible chance of 
escape. To sacrifice himself thus would do 
no good whatever. The spy would be free 
to go on with his terrible enterprise. The 
secret Danny alone knew, would die with him. 
It would be much wiser to retire, and seek for 
some other way of exit from the passage. 

Sometimes action, with its element of 


TAPPING THE CABLE 


107 


excitement, with the invigorating spirit of 
sacrifice that accompanies it, is much easier 
than a safer, wiser course. It was hard for Danny 
to turn his back on this dangerous enemy of 
his country, to leave him unmolested at his 
eavesdropping, and to creep back along half 
a mile of passage. Yet, to seek for every 
possible chance of getting out and making 
known the facts to the military was his clear 
duty. He had not yet explored the vault; 
there might possibly be a way of escape 
through this. 

Pushing the heavy stone of the secret entrance 
to the vault, Danny crept once more into the 
mysterious place, holding aloft his lantern. 
On every hand guns, rifles, cases of ammunition 
surrounded him. All was so silent and horrible, 
and yet so sinister and alive. Suddenly he 
started, a gasp of horror rising in his 
throat. 

There, in the yellow light of his candle, he 
saw a prostrate figure, lying motionless, upon 
what looked like a low, stone bench. It was 


io8 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


clothed in a long, crimson robe ; gold glittered 
here and there upon it. Drawing nearer, and 
struggling with his fear, he saw, to his relief, 
that it was but an image — a carving of some 
saintly bishop long dead, his white hands folded 
peacefully upon his breast, his mitre on his 
head. 

This, then, was the crypt of the Abbey 
Church. Danny drew near, and looked rev- 
erently at the carving of the peaceful holy old 
face. Here, too, lay a prince, in blue and 
ermine and a crown. There, T^ehind a pillar, 
was the effigy of a white-robed father — a pile 
of rifles had been propped against his tomb. 
Further on was a little chapel, the altar 
still standing. 

Somehow it all comforted Danny, making 
him feel less alone, giving him a sense of un- 
seen protection. Filled with a new courage 
and confidence he stepped forward. 

How strange in this holy place to find a 
store of German weapons ! Five hundred years 
it had laid hidden, to be discovered at last by 


TAPPING THE CABLE 


109 


theenemy and used as a storehouse of munitions 
of war. Quietly Danny began his search for 
a way out, and before long he was rewarded. 

A wooden door, in the corner of the crypt, 
stood ajar. Passing through this, Danny found 
himself in a small room. 

From it led what once must have been the 
staircase up into the church. But this was 
now broken, and completely choked with 
stones and pieces of fallen masonry. On 
the opposite side of the room the wall was 
cracked and broken. In one place a crevice 
yawned, wide enough to let a man creep 
through into the darkness beyond. Leaning 
through this, Danny strained his eyes to try 
and pierce the gloom. There was nothing to 
see, but against his hot face he felt a cool wind 
blowing. It was altogether different from the 
heavy, suffocating atmosphere of the passage 
and crypt. Instead of the mouldy smell that 
had reached his nostrils, Danny was conscious 
of the pungent, salty odour that is borne on 
a sea breeze! 


no DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


It filled his heart with hope. Holding aloft 
his lantern, he climbed through the opening, 
and stepped forward over the rough and stony 
floor. 


CHAPTER IX 


free! 

The narrow place Danny had clambered into 
seemed more like a crevice than a passage. 
In parts the rough walls were so close to- 
gether that he could only just pass. Further 
on, he had to bend his head, so low was the 
rocky roof. In another place a craggy boulder 
had to be climbed over, and a deep crack 
jumped across. And ever the cool breeze 
fanned his face, making his candle flare and 
gutter. As he stopped to listen, a faint sound 
reached his ears, a kind of sigh. As he pressed 
onwards the sound increased. 

^'The sea!’’ he whispered. 

And then, through the dense blackness 
ahead, a grey patch showed, pricked here and 
there with a faint star. A rush of joy and 


III 


1 12 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


relief filled Danny’s heart. Fresh air! The 
upper world again! 

Hurrying over the rough floor he reached 
the opening in the rocky wall, and stepped 
out on to a ledge, very narrow, very perilous. 
Away before him stretched a vast expanse of 
sea, heaving and shimmering in the pale light 
of dawn. Taking a great breath of the cold, 
salty air, Danny looked about him. 

Below him the cliff dropped smooth and 
precipitous, to where the green water churned 
and foamed among sharp points of rock. The 
grey wall above his head ran skywards, straight 
and smooth. There was no way up or down. 
And in front the lonely sea tossed and foamed, 
with never a boat in sight. 

Sea gulls swooped about, with their sad, 
sharp cries — their gleaming, silver wings seem- 
ing to mock the boy, prisoner on a ledge that 
was to them but a resting-place. 

Once again Danny came very near to despair. 
A wild recklessness seized him. He would 
jump down into that churning foam and water. 



He stepped out on to a ledge, very narrow, very perilous. 





FREE! 


113 

and hope for the best; hope that he would 
not strike a rock. It was the only thing to 
do. He could almost feel himself falling, 
falling through the cold air, feel the shock 
of the splash into the foaming sea far below. 
There was something exhilarating about it. 
He would probably be killed. Oh, it would 
be a relief from the horror of the last few 
hours I And he would be dying for his country ! 

With the thought of his country, however, 
he returned to a saner mood. No, that 
was all rot. To hurl yourself to useless de- 
struction is not to die for your country. He 
had a great secret to carry and deliver, so as 
to save England. He knew that there was only 
about one chance in a thousand that if he 
jumped down he would ever be able to reach 
the shore in safety. It was not for him to 
take risks. His heart sank as he realised the 
only course left to him — for to shout for help 
would be useless : this was a lonely place at 
best, and there was no chance of any one 

being near at dawn. 

8 


1 14 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


‘H must go back.’’ 

He spoke the words aloud. And his voice 
sounded weak and shaky Oh, the horror of 
going back into that nightmare of dark passages 
and vaults ! But it was his duty. Here, there 
was no chance of escape; there, there might 
possibly be. 

‘‘It’s more horrible to go back than to 
jump down into the sea,” he said, “but I’ll 
do it for England’s sake, and to keep my 
promise to do my duty, and not give in to 
myself. ” 

Clenching his fists tight, he turned his back 
on the sea and faced the darkness. Why had 
he come here if it was all for no purpose ? Even 
as he wondered this, his eye fell on something 
that gave him the answer. In a cranny in the 
wall three objects were stowed: a powerful 
telescope, a signalling flag, and a strong flash- 
light. So the spies, also, had discovered this 
ledge! To whom did they mean to signal.? 
Obviously to someone out to sea — to a sub- 
marine — a stealthy scout, sent from some 


FREE! 


115 

enemy squadron lying out in a bank of mist; 
the picture rose in Danny’s mind. 

Picking up the telescope, he scanned the 
sea, half expecting to see a little black point — 
a periscope — watching, watching for the 
expected signal. There was nothing in view; 
but he had made an important discovery, 
namely that such a watching scout was 
expected by the spies; that they had made 
arrangements to signal across the sea, as well 
as by the other means Danny had discovered. 
To have learnt this important piece of informa- 
tion made his difficult task of getting to the 
cliff worth while ; the time so expended had not 
been time lost. Danny knew now why he had 
been led thither. With this added information 
to report, he was more than ever impatient 
to be out — more full of hope and determina- 
tion. 

Back along the rocky crack he went; back 
through the crypt; back into the passage. For 
the second time he hurried silently along it. 
At the place where it turned a sharp corner 


ii6 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


he paused to listen, breathlessly. Yes, there 

it was — ^‘buzz, buzz-buzz, buzzzz ’’ 

Danny put out his lantern. In the darkness 
he turned the corner and watched the spy 
at work. The yellow light of the candle was 
not sufficient to pierce the shadows and reveal 
him to the enemy. What should he do nov^? 
As before, he longed to attack the man. But 
this course would, he knew, be worse than 
useless. The spy was very much intent upon 
his work. Inch by inch Danny crawled 
nearer. What should he do.^ 

Suddenly an inspiration came. The man 
was facing the wall, his back to the passage. 
His ears were filled with the noise of the buzzer, 
his eyes fixed on a notebook he held in his hand. 
His whole attention was engrossed. It might 
be possible, with great care, to slip behind 
him in the dim light and pass by! It would 
be a desperate attempt, but it was the only way. 

Danny measured the space with his eye. 
His heart beat wildly. Dare he attempt it } 
Of course, he would dare anything for 


FREE! 


117 

England I And this was not a forlorn 
hope; it was a chance of escape depending 
upon steady nerve, self-control, and infinite 
care. 

He remembered how he had always been 
the best Cub at '‘stalking"" when the Cub- 
master stood blindfold, and the Cubs 
had to creep near him. That practice had 
not been wasted. Inch by inch he crept up. 
"Buzz, buzz!"" went the apparatus. Oh, if 
only it would go on buzzing — if only the spy 
would stick to his job for five minutes longer! 
Nearer and nearer Danny crawled. Once 
he lay flat and froze, as the spy changed his 
position and actually glanced up the dark 
passage! Then he resumed his slow progress. 

At last he crouched a yard from the man. 
The buzzer buzzed hard ; the spy bent forward, 
writing in his book. Like a mouse running 
silently along the wainscot, Danny slid past 
him, almost brushing the man’s legs. With- 
out pausing or turning, not daring to breathe, 
he crawled on. 


ii8 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


At last, hidden by. the shadows, he paused, 
and, kneeling up, slowly turned his head. The 
man was still intent on his work. The task 
was accomplished! Danny breathed again. 
There was infinite gratitude in his pounding 
heart. 

Rising softly to a standing position, he 
tiptoed on down the passage. He had been 
forced, of course, to leave his lantern behind. 
He dared not use his electric light in case an- 
other spy lurked ahead. In the pitch darkness 
he pressed on as quickly as he could. Every 
now and then he paused to listen. There was 
no sound of following steps. He felt pretty 
confident that he would not meet a German at 
the end of the passage, for they would not dare 
try to get in or out by daylight, and by now 
the sun must have risen. Before long the 
Scouts on the day watch would be coming to re- 
lieve those who had patrolled the roads the long 
night through. No, the spies would have little 
chance above ground — they must stay in their 
horrible underground haunts, or up in the 


FREE! 


1 19 

tower. They were like rats in a trap I Danny 
nearly laughed aloud at the thought, for once 
he was out of the passage, these rats would be 
in his power! 

Splash, splash! He had stepped without 
knowing it into the water. He paused a 
minute, nerving himself for what was to 
follow. Then the thought that only this lay be- 
tween him and freedom gave him new courage. 
Wading in, he was soon waist deep. When the 
water was up to his neck, and he had already 
descended four steps, he took a big breath 
and dived. Three, four, five strong strokes 
and he was out in the dim, green light at the 
bottom of the pool. A fish swam out of his 
way. Weeds and lily buds swayed about 
him. He raised his hands above his head, 
kicked with his legs, and rose to the surface of 
the pool. He was free, free, free! 

The early morning sun shone down in 
golden glory through the trees. A thousand 
birds were singing. Scrambling out of the 
water, Danny stood on the bank and looked 


120 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


around him at the beautiful world he had 
scarcely hoped to see again. 

‘‘Thank God!’’ he said from the bottom 
of his heart. Then he set briskly out to 
perform the great duty that lay before him. 


CHAPTER X 


IN THE HANDS OF THE SCOUTS 

For a few minutes Danny could do nothing 
but stand on the edge of the pool, in the 
glorious sunlight, beneath the great blue sky, 
and realise that he was free. It was like 
waking up from a ghastly nightmare. 

After shaking himself like a dog and 
squeezing some of the water out of his clothes, 
he turned up the little path leading to the 
road. 

Where should he go.^ To whom should he 
report.? He had such a wonderful story 
to tell, such a network of clues to unravel, 
such important information to report — it 
was difficult to know where to start. And 
would they ever take him seriously? he 
wondered. 

I2I 


122 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


Feeling in his pocket, he drew forth a flat 
cigarette-tin. It contained his precious note- 
book. For, with the forethought of a true 
Scout, he had realised that at any time a 
swim in the pool might be necessary, and 
that it was important to keep his book dry. 
It contained his report, carefully written out, 
with dates and diagrams, up till the night of 
his capture. The events since then were not 
entered, of course, but they were imprinted 
forever on his brain. Can any one ever for- 
get moments when death seems very near, or 
when an unseen hand seems to protect one 
marvellously and set one free 

Glancing at his entries, Danny decided that 
his little book would not be much use in 
helping to explain the immediate dangers that 
must be dealt with. It was useless to try and 
tell the whole story from the beginning. To 
get the Germans caught was all that mattered. 
His book would be useful as evidence later, 
so he replaced it in his pocket and set out 
along the road in search of the Scouts. 


IN THE HANDS OF THE SCOUTS 123 


It was not long before he came on two of 
them marching briskly along their piece of 
road. 

‘‘ Hullo ! ’’ they said. What on earth are you 
doing out at this time of the morning } And 
you’re soaking wet, and in no end of a mess. 
Your uniform’s all torn, and — what’s up with 
your wrists.? They’re all bleeding! My 
word, you will get in a row!” 

‘'Can’t help that,” said Danny. “There’s 
something jolly important up. Who’s the 
P. L. in charge.? I’ve got to report it at 
once.” 

“Michael Byrne’s just come on with us — 
but Dick is only just going off with the night 
chaps. If you buck up you’ll catch him,” 
said the Scouts. 

“Thanks,” said Danny, and set off down 
the road at the double. Old Mike was a 
good chap and a friend of Danny’s, but some- 
how he didn’t seem the best chap to whom 
to report. The Senior P. L. was the very 
person Danny wanted. 


124 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


Rounding the corner, he saw a party of 
Scouts ahead, walking slowly towards the vil- 
lage. It must be those who had been on duty 
all night, just going back to bed. Danny 
slowed down into a walk again to get his 
breath, but before long he had caught them 
up. Stepping up to Dick’s side, he saluted 
smartly. 

“Hullo, Danny!” said Dick, surprised. The 
other fellows all opened their mouths to make 
the same kind of remarks that the first two 
Scouts had made, but Danny spoke at once 
without waiting for them. 

“Dick,” he said, “I’ve got something 
jolly important to report to you at once. Can 
I speak to you, alone.? We mustn’t lose a 
sec. ” 

“Right-o!” said Dick Church, and Danny 
noted with relief that he spoke perfectly 
seriously. 

Some of the Scouts began to laugh and make 
jokes about “ Danny the Detective, ” but Dick 
rounded on them. 


IN THE HANDS OF THE SCOUTS 125 


“Shut up, you chaps!’’ he said. “Can’t 
you see the kid’s as white as a sheet, and all 
over blood, and his clothes torn and soaked? 
He wouldn’t get in that state for fun. Go 
on — don’t wait for me. ” He turned to Danny, 
and suddenly took his arm, for the boy was 
swaying, his head was turning dizzily. 

“Jim,” he called, after the retreating Scouts, 
“have you got some tea left in your billy?” 

Jim came back. 

“Here you are, kid — have a drink!” 
said Dick, giving him the cup. “Sit down! 
You’ll be all right in a minute!” 

The tea bucked Danny up no end. His 
knees stopped knocking together. 

“Thank you, ” he said. “ Don’t know why 
I felt so funny; I’m all right now.” 

“Then what is it you have to report?” said 
Dick, sitting down on the bank. 

“Well, ” said Danny, “first I think you may 
want those chaps when you hear. ” He pointed 
after the Scouts. 

Dick blew his whistle. “I say,” he shouted 


126 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


as they turned round, '‘sit down and wait 
for me. I shan’t be long.” The Scouts 
obeyed. 

"Now,” said Dick, "fire away!” 

Danny took a big breath. "There is a 
party of German spies,” he said, "quite near 
here. One is tapping this very cable. Others 
are watching and signalling from the Abbey 
Tower. They have a store of guns and am- 
munition. ” 

"Are you kidding.?” said Dick, searching 
Danny’s face with keen eyes. 

The boy shook his head. "I’m not,” he 
said, "on my honour.” 

"Have you seen these spies.?” said Dick 
quietly, watching the Cub intently. 

"Yes!” 

"When?” 

"I’ve been their prisoner all night, and 
have only just escaped.” He held out his 
hands. "I hurt them,” he said, "getting free.” 

Dick nodded. "Where are they hiding.?” 
he asked. 


IN THE HANDS OF THE SCOUTS 127 

‘Hn an underground passage, and in the 
tower. ’’ 

‘"Are they there now?” 

“Yes.” 

“Where is the entrance to the underground 
passage?” 

“There are two. One is in the Abbey ruins, 
and one at the bottom of the mill pond. ” 

“Where are they tapping the cable?” 

“About three hundred yards down this 
road. Wires run down the telegraph post. 
The man has a buzzer below, in the passage. ” 

Dick took his whistle from his pocket and 
blew three short blasts and a long one. Two 
leaders and two seconds jumped up from the 
seated group ahead, and came up at the 
double. “Allen,” said Dick, “take your patrol 
down to the mill, set three boys to watch the 
pond, and you and the others search the mill 
and outhouses. Don’t leave the pond un- 
guarded for an instant. It is being used 
by spies. ” 

“Great Scott!” said Allen. 


128 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


you pass Michael/’ said Dick, ‘‘tell 
him Fve sent you back on duty, for a special 
guard. ” 

“ Right, ” said Allen, and doubled off. 

“Marchant, you and your chaps must come 
with me,” said Dick. “We are on the scent 
of something hot this time. Lead ahead, 
Danny. ” 

The Kangaroos passed at the double, a grin 
of content on every face. This really was war. 
The Otters fell in behind Dick and their leader 
with mystified expressions. Ten minutes later 
the party had arrived at Danny’s house. 

“You must come through my garden,” 
he said. 

The Scouts followed him. Across the cab- 
bage patch they crept, between the goose- 
berry bushes, and through the little hole in the 
hedge. White dew lay thick on the grass, 
and a whole colony of rabbits darted up, 
surprised, and scuttled away. 

“Here,” said Danny, as the party halted 
by the ruins of the Abbot’s House, “here is 


IN THE HANDS OF THE SCOUTS 129 


entrance to the secret passage. You have to 
get through the window.’’ 

‘‘Get through!” commanded Dick. 

Following their guide, the patrol got through. 
It was pitch dark. Dick switched on his elec- 
tric torch. Down the steps they crept. 

“This is the door to the passage,” said 
Danny, as the Scouts reached the low archway. 

“How many spies are in the passage.^” 
asked Dick. 

“One,” said Danny. 

“Two of you chaps — Bill and Knobby — 
stay here on guard. Have you got staves?” 

“Yes.” 

And axeSy'' added Knobby, with a fero- 
cious emphasis. 

“If any one tries to open that door from 
the inside, keep it shut — see.^” 

“Right,” said Bill. 

With Danny leading the way, the party, 
now minus two, crept out again into the 
sunlight. 

“This is the way they get from the passage 


130 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


to the tower/" said Danny, as they walked 
across the open space of grass and climbed 
through the hole in the wall into the cloisters. 

I saw their wet footprints on the flagstones, 
leading up to the door of the tower,"" he 
added. 

"'How many are in the tower?"" said Dick. 

"I don"t know for certain,"" replied Danny. 
"But I have seen four belonging to the gang 
myself. One is in the passage. There are 
probably three or more up there."" 

Dick tried the door. It was locked. 

"Four of you stand on guard outside this 
door,"" he said. "Two get further out in the 
ruin; one must keep his eyes on the top of the 
tower, and the other just patrol around. 
Danny, come with me. "" 

Five minutes later Dick was pushing his 
motor-bike out of its shed. Before long the 
boys were tearing down the road, Danny 
sitting on the carrier, clinging to Dick"s belt. 

"Stop me at the telegraph post, won"t 
you?"" he called over his shoulder. 



Before long the boys were tearing down the road, Danny sitting on the carrier, clinging to Dick’s belt. 





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IN THE HANDS OF THE SCOUTS 13 1 


“ Right, ’’ panted Danny, through the wind. 
‘‘Whoa!’’ he shouted presently. “Here we 
are!” 

Dick stopped and jumped off, leaning his 
bike against the bank. 

“There — do you see?” whispered Danny, 
brushing aside a mass of nettles and revealing 
the old drain pipe. “There goes the wire. Do 
you see ? — it runs up the post. They’ve cut a 
groove for it and tarred it over, so it scarcely 
shows! The German chap is just down there. 
Put your ear to tht- hole — you may hear the 
buzzer. ” 

Dick lay down in the ditch, his ear glued to 
the pipe. 

“ By Jove, so I can ! ” he whispered excitedly. 
“It’s quite clear — yes — yes! ...” He listened 
intently for some minutes. Then he got up. 
“I can’t make any sense of it — it’s in code.” 
He ground his teeth. “And to think that 
beast is taking it all down!” he whispered. 
Then a sudden inspiration seized him. 

“We’ll soon put a stop to his eavesdrop- 


132 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


ping!’’ he exclaimed. ''It may give the show 
away, that he’s found out, but if he tries to 
escape, our chaps will nab him all right. ” 

Taking his axe from its case, Dick dealt a 
blow to the post, severing both wires. 

^'Now I must connect them again, up there*,” 
he said, and proceeded to swarm quickly up 
the post. Danny watched admiringly. 

Clinging on with his legs, Dick worked 
with deft fingers. He had not got his Tele- 
graphist Badge for nothing. 

"‘That’s done,” he said, sliding down. 
“Now for Captain Miles.” 

As they flew past the mill, Danny waved his 
hand to Allen and the Kangaroos on duty 
there. Then he began to think anxiously of 
the report he was to make to Captain Miles. 


CHAPTER XI 


CAUGHT AT LAST 

Outside Danny’s garden gate, an important- 
looking group of people were standing. In 
fact, they looked so important and so interest- 
ing that most of the inhabitants of the village 
had turned out to stare at them. Two Sixes 
of Cubs had been posted as a cordon to keep 
the staring crowd from touching the three grey 
motor cars or otherwise annoying the group. 

This consisted of Captain Miles and a young 
officer, a sergeant and ten hefty privates, a 
police inspector and three constables, a pri- 
vate detective, Dick and Danny. 

‘‘Here he comes!” said Dick. The Scout 
who had been sent up to the Hall was re- 
turning, accompanied by the pompous butler, 
bearing the great iron key that unlocked the 

gate of the Abbey ruins. It would have been 
133 


134 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


rather ignominious for an officer of the British 
army to have to crawl through cabbages 
and gooseberry bushes and a small hole in a 
privet hedge — or so thought the Scouts — 
though Captain Miles was quite prepared to 
do so. 

‘‘But it would be difficult bringing the 
prisoners out that way/’ said Danny. The 
constables grinned at the small boy’s assur- 
ance. And the private detective (the real 
one) looked green with envy. 

“Lead the way, young Cub,” said Captain 
Miles, as the gate swung open with a screech 
of rusty hinges. 

For the second time that day, Danny walked 
across the grassy space of the Abbot’s garden. 
And his heart was light and his ambitious soul 
satisfied, for behind him walked an officer, 
and men with fixed bayonets. Two privates 
relieved the Scouts who still crouched in the 
darkness within the ruin of the Abbot’s 
House. They blinked like owls as they climbed 
out into the sunlight again. 


CAUGHT AT LAST 


135 


*‘We will deal with the tower first/’ said 
Captain Miles. 

Danny led the way to the tower door. 

To their disappointment, the officer ordered 
Danny and the Scouts to retire to a safe dis- 
tance. But from there they watched, their 
hearts beating with excitement. 

Two of the privates, after several efforts, 
succeeded in bursting open the little door. 
Then, with his revolver in his hand and fol- 
lowed by the sergeant and three privates. 
Captain Miles entered. Several breathless 
minutes passed. And then they reappeared, 
but not alone. Sheepish, sullen, and securely 
handcuffed, three Germans stepped out be- 
tween their burly guards. 

‘‘Come on!” called Captain Miles to the 
Scouts, a grin of satisfaction on his cheery 
face. 

Danny and the Scouts obeyed with alacrity. 

“Well, we’ve caught Fritz and his pals, 
all right,” said Captain Miles, “thanks to 
‘Danny the Detective.’ ” 


136 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


The three Germans stared at Danny with 
an expression of such loathing that it made 
cold shivers run down his back. 

Two sentries were posted with fixed bayo- 
nets each side of the tower door, for the fourth 
spy was to be caught before the tower was 
investigated. 

The party moved over to the Abbot’s House. 
Captain Miles, the sergeant, and four privates 
climbed through the ruined window, and dis- 
appeared into the darkness. The group out- 
side stood listening breathlessly. They heard 
the iron door creak as it swung back on its 
rusty hinges. Then silence. 

But suddenly a yell rent the air, followed by 
a great explosion. Then silence again. The 
young officer, accompanied by the privates 
and constables, climbed through the win- 
dow and dashed across the dark house into 
the passage. Feverishly the Scouts waited 
without. The minutes seemed to drag by 
like hours. What had happened? Then a 
sound fell on their ears. Heavy, shuffling 


CAUGHT AT LAST 


137 


steps were crossing the rough floor of the 
house. 

‘‘Here, give us a hand,” said a voice within. 
The Scouts were ready. 

One by one the members of the first party 
were passed through the window. They were 
badly wounded. Several were unconscious. 
Laying them on the grass, the Scouts turned 
to Dick for instructions. Each received his 
orders promptly and clearly. One sped off 
for a doctor, another to telephone for an am- 
bulance, another to fetch such articles as could 
be borrowed to render first aid to the wounded 
men. 

Quickly and skilfully tourniquets were ap- 
plied to arrest the flow of blood that already 
dyed the grass red. Everyone was pale and 
horrified. 

“What happened.?” was the whisper that 
passed from one to the other. 

“The — chap — threw a bomb — and — made 
off,” said the only man fit to speak. 

The young officer had returned. 


138 DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


“Captain Miles has had a narrow shave,” 
he said, “ but he’s all right. He’s gone on with 
some more men. Now, let’s see to these poor 
chaps. ” 

But he found they were all being seen to very 
well, and he learnt for the first time what the 
Scout motto means. Through years of peace 
the Scouts had been preparing themselves. 
With keenness and energy they had been learn- 
ing, practising much that seemed to outsiders 
of but little use. “Be Prepared,” was the 
motto their Chief had given them. And 
“Stick to it,” was the one they had added. 
The war has proved who, after all, was in the 
right. 

The Kangaroos had been told to guard the 
mill pond. They had not been told why it 
was necessary to keep a sharp watch upon it, 
beyond that it was being used by the enemy. 
But, being Scouts, they had obeyed the order 
and kept a vigilant lookout, though it seemed 
quiet and peaceful enough. 

The two whose turn it was to watch w«-e 


CAUGHT AT LAST 


139 


lying well ambushed, their eyes upon the water, 
when to their immense surprise a head sud- 
denly rose above the surface. 

Its hair was plastered down with slime and 
duck-weed. Its eyes looked about in a terri- 
fied manner. Seeing no one, the owner of 
the head swam to the side of the pond, and 
quickly, cautiously, clambered on to the bank. 

Then the two Scouts dashed forward. In a 
minute they had him down, his arms pinned 
to his sides. 

A long ‘‘Coo-ee!” brought up the other 
Kangaroos at the double, and ‘‘Fritz” found 
himself a helpless prisoner. 

Leaving the rest to keep watch on the pond, 
the Leader of the Kangaroos marched off his 
prisoner between two hefty guards. 


CHAPTER XII 


‘‘well done, DANNY 

Meanwhile, Captain Miles and his party 
searched the passage in vain. The spy had 
vanished. Realising what might have hap- 
pened, the officer sent back a party to go as 
quickly as possible to the mill, whilst he con- 
tinued to search the vault. And so the party 
bound for the mill met the prisoner and his 
guards on the road, and returning, reported 
this to Captain Miles. 

Packing the four Germans and their guards 
into a motor lorry, and putting the young 
officer in charge, he sent them to the town 
and turned his attention to the necessary in- 
vestigations. 

Pausing at the door of the tower. 

“Look here, young Wolf Cub,’’ he said, 

140 


‘‘WELL DONE, DANNY 


141 

“you’ve done some very smart work in dis- 
covering all this, and proved yourself some 
detective. You may come with me and in- 
vestigate the tower. That valuable notebook 
of yours will then contain the end of the 
story. It will be a treasure worth keeping. ” 

And so Danny, in the seventh heaven of 
happiness, accompanied the officer up the 
winding stairs. 

At the top of the tower they discovered a 
wireless apparatus, a cage of carrier pigeons, 
a powerful flashlight, and a large store of pro- 
visions. 

“We knew there was something bad on,” 
said Captain Miles, “but not like this ! You’ve 
done your country a good turn, indeed, in 
discovering it! Well done, Danny!” 

That night the Troop and the Pack met at 
Troop Headquarters. Much ginger beer 
flowed. Then the Scoutmaster blew his 
whistle and, standing, on a soap box, ad- 
dressed the assembled company. It was a 


142 


DANNY THE DETECTIVE 


long speech, but everyone listened, spellbound, 
for he told them the whole story of Danny’s 
adventures, since the first day, after the paper- 
chase. 

When he had done, the Troop and Pack 
broke into cheers. 

‘‘Order, order!” shouted the Leaders, as 
the Cubmaster mounted the soap box. 

“Your grasping Scoutmaster has tried to 
steal Danny and get him for his Troop,” he 
said. “But Danny has chosen to stay with 
us. I must announce that he has been 
elected Pack Leader, by the unanimous vote 
of the Pack — and we are jolly proud of him.” 

“Speech, speech!” called everyone, and 
someone put Danny on the soap box. 

“I wish you’d all chuck it,” he said. “I 
don’t deserve any praise. It was simply rip- 
ping fun — ^just what I had always longed for. 
I’ve had great luck, that ’s all. ” 

“Your Pack Leader will need a cap several 
sizes larger soon, ” said the Scoutmaster to the 


^‘WELL DONE, DANNY!” 


143 


Cubmaster, as he opened the morning paper 
the next day. 

Before long there was a letter of thanks from 
the Government, a medal, and a cheque for 
£100. 

But there was something Danny valued 
more than all the rest. It was just a short 
letter of congratulations. But he took it 
away and read it all by himself in the garden, 
and did not show it to anybody else for quite 
a long time. 

It was from the Chief Scout. 

The End 



The White Blanket 

By 

Belmore Browne 

Author of “The Quest of the Golden Valley,” etc. 

12^0 Illustrated $L25 net 
By mall, $L35 

A sequel to The Quest of the Golden Valley, 
this time taking the chums through the vicissi- 
tudes of an Alaskan winter. 

They travel over snow-covered mountain 
ranges and frost-bound plateaus to the rolling 
caribou mountains of the unknown interior. 
In their wanderings they experience many 
strange adventures, and overcome the numer- 
ous hardships that are familiar to the men of 
the Northern wilderness. They trap the many 
fur-bearing animals, hunt the big game, camp 
with the Indians, do dog-driving, snowshoeing, 
etc. With the coming of spring they descend 
one of the wilderness rivers on a raft and 
at the eleventh hour, after being wrecked in 
a dangerous canyon, they discover a fabulous 
quartz lode, and succeed in reaching the sea 
coast. 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 



Sheridan’s Twins 

By 

Sidford F. Hamp 

72°. Illustrated by Belmore Browne 
Price, $1.25; by mail, $1.35 

The “twins,” though not brothers, 
are of one age and have been brought 
up together. They are partners, in 
fact, in spirit, in the stirring adven- 
tures of frontier life that the story 
records. It tells how they get their 
start in life by an act of service, and 
how clean in thought, clear in head, 
with courage and brawn, they win 
their way, starting as market gardeners 
and ending as owners of a valuable 
mine. 

G. P« Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 



Connie Morgan with the 
Mounted 

By 

James B. Hendryx 

Author of ** Connie Morgan in Alaska” 

12°. Illustrated. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.35 

It tells how “ Sam Morgan’s Boy,” 
well known to readers of Mr. Hendryx’s 
“Connie Morgan in Alaska,” daringly 
rescued a man who was rushing to de- 
struction on an ice floe and how, in rec- 
ognition of his quick-wittedness and 
nerve, he was made a Special Constable 
in the Northwest Mounted Police, with 
the exceptional adventures that fell to 
his lot in that perilous service. It is a 
story of the northern wilderness, clean 
and bracing as the vigorous, untainted 
winds that sweep over that region; 
the story of a boy who wins out 
against the craft of Indians and the guile 
of the bad white man of the North; the 
story of a boy who succeeds where men 
fail. 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 



The Treasure of 
Mushroom Rock 

A Story of Prospecting in the Rocky 
Mountains 

By 

Sidford F. Hamp 

/ 2 ^. Illustrated. $1.25 net. mail, $1 .35 

This story concerns the adventure 
of two boys, one American and one 
English, who find themselves by mis- 
take on a vessel bound for New 
Orleans. Fearing to return to England, 
they journey to the mining town of 
Golconda in Utah, which they reach 
after an adventure with train robbers. 
In company with a relative of one of 
the boys they proceed upon a hunting 
and prospecting expedition, during 
which they meet with many exciting 
adventures, but finally succeed in se- 
curing the treasure of Mushroom 
Rock. The story is bound to be of 
great interest to every boy. 

G. P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 




r* . 





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